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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



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POLITICAL CATHOLICISM. 



t 



" Memoriara prioris servitutis, ac testimonium preesentium 
bonorum composuisse." — Tacitus, Agric., c. 3. 

" The judgments of God are for ever unchangeable, neither is 
he wearied by the long process of time, and won to give his 
blessing in one age to that which he hath cursed in another." 

Raleigh. 

" That good men should have the freedom which they merit, 
the bad should have the curb which they need." — Milton. 

" It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men 
of intemperate minds cannot be free, their passions forge their 
fetters," — Burke. 



HISTORICAL OUTLINES 

7 



POLITICAL CATHOLICISM 



ITS PAPACY— PRELACY— PRIESTHOOD- 
PEOPLE. 

1867 J 



CHAPMAN 



LONDON : 
AND HALL, 193 
1853. 



PICCADILLY. 



LONDON : PRINTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 



The design of this essay being merely to communicate 
political instruction in the form of historical information, — 
the author has not only carefully concealed his own, but 
studiously avoided allusion to opinions purely religious. 
These pages are presented to the perusal of every sect, 
in the hope of not offending the peculiar prejudices of 
any. The term Catholicism in the title may, perhaps, 
be exceptionable to many, but it is defined in the latest 
English Dictionary, that of Webster — " adherence to the 
Roman Catholic Church," a definition justified by the 
high authority of Lord Somers ; and it is used in the 
succeeding pages merely as politically descriptive of a 
particular class, irrespective altogether of the claim to 
universality for their peculiar creed. " It is a great 
misfortune," observed Pope Ganganelli, " that people 
confound religion with her ministers, and make her 
responsible for their faults." To illustrate one still 
greater — the confounding of religion with politics — to 
avert another, by awakening every class to the dangers 
which menace their civil rights, from the intemperance 
and intolerance of her ministers, is the aim and object of 



[ « ] 

the author. It has been often lamented that learning, 
wisdom, and experience should lie buried, with their 
follies, prejudices, and weakuesses, in the graves of our 
forefathers Historic events in which our ancestors had 
been the actors, rescued in our days from the obscurity 
with which time and dust have covered them, may be 
fairly treated as treasure-trove; and some merit may 
perhaps be accorded, even to the humblest, who presents 
them to the public. In reviving the recollections, and 
recording the results of transactions that are past, 
ground previously trodden by others must necessarily be 
travelled over by the inquirer. In the selection of 
authorities- Roman Catholic authors have been invariably 
preferred by the writer, when the required information 
could be procured from them. In those instances in 
which references are given, he has ventured to follow the 
highest modern authority, by adopting the views, and in 
some instances the language, of those to whom he refers. — 
The maxim of Cicero, " Nihil est in historia pura et 
illustri, brevitate dulcius," seems to have been the guide 
of Tacitus : adopting that maxim, and following that high 
example, the author has ventured to compress into a con- 
densed form, so far as they are applicable to his design — 
the annals of three centuries — centuries replete with 
events — furnishing materials for grave and varied re- 
flections — distinguished for the progression of intellectual, 
philosophical, commercial, and political advancement. 

London, 12th March, 1853. 



C N T E N T S. 



CHAPTER I. 

Clerical subordination — Religion of Christ — Church of 
Rome — Priestly dominion — Era of Reformation — 
English Protestantism — Irish Catholicity — Penal Code 
— Catholic Emancipation — Wellington — Papal States — 
Ambition of Clergy — Reign of Elizabeth — Paul IV. — 
Inquisition at Rome — Popedom — Duke of Alva — Perse- 
cutions — Council of Blood — Pius IV. — Pius V. — His 
deathbed — Canonization — Papal Bulls — Bossuet — 
Gregory XIII. — Papal attempts in Ireland — Sextus V. 
— Amiada — "Walsingham — Spanish expedition to Ireland 
— Its defeat — Irish rebellious chieftains — The Queen — 
Her contempt for the Spaniards — Clement VIII. — 
O'Neill — His defeat — Clanricarde — Return to Spain — 
Submission of the rebels — Popish Clergy in the reign of 
Elizabeth — James L — Arabella Stuart — Tolerant in- 
tentions of James — Address of the Commons — Edward 
Bruce — Crown of Ireland — Victoria, Queen of Ireland 
— Gunpowder Plot — Mount Eagle — Garnett the Jesuit — 
Gospellers — Papelins — Roman Catholic subjects — 
Jesuits — Plantation of Ulster — Sir John Davis — Lord 
Deputy Chichester — Commons of Ireland — Tumultuous 
proceedings — Reception of deputies by the King — Con- 
clusion 1 . . 1 — 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER II. 

PAGE 

Accession of Charles I. — Parliament — Queen Henrietta — 
Her humiliating penance — Her Confessor — Strafford — 
Massacre of 1641 -Exclamation of Charles — Indignation 
of Castle Haven, a Roman Catholic Peer — Rebellion — 
Confederate Catholics — Difficulties of the King — The 
Scots — Remonstrance of Trim — Richelieu — Mazarin — 
Stuarts — Coronation Oath — Charles' refusal to violate 
it against the Church — His instructions to his son — 
Priesthood — Arrival of Nuncio in Ireland — Excom- 
munications — Priestly intemperance — Rinuncini — Re- 
in onstrance — Ormond — Priestly treachery — Glamorgan 
— Mission — Signet instructions — Warlike Archbishop 
of Tuam slain —Betrayal of Glamorgan — Clerical perfidy 
— Fate of Charles I. — Exultation at Rome — Cromwell 
— Priestly power — Fulmination of Nuncio — Madness of 
Clergy — Popular infatuation — Cromwell in Ireland — 
Misdeeds of Rinuncini — Cromwellians — Tipperary — 
Counties Palatine — Synods — Sufferings of the nation — 
Subdued state of priesthood — Flight and return of 
Nuncio to Rome — Fleet of Blake on Papal coast - Con- 
sternation — Submission at Rome — Payment by the 
Pope to the treasury of England .... 28 — 49 

CHAPTER III. 

Humiliation of the Roman Catholics — The new settlers — 
Described by Swift — Contrast between fate of Re- 
publicans in England and those who settled in Ireland 
— Restoration of Charles II. — Synod at Dublin: — Pope 
Alexander VII. — Peter Talbot — Proffer of the Crown 
by the priests — Charles II. — His faithlessness — Irish 
brigade — Marlborough— Contrast — Plots — Accession of 
James II. — His cruelties — His Queen — His abdication 
— Petre his Confessor — Revocation of Edict of Nantes 
— Castlemaine — Mission to Rome — Cardinal Howard — . 
Innocent XI. — Baseness of James — Committal of Castle- 
maine — Diplomatic relations with Rome— Infatuation 
of James— Rinaldo D'Este, the Queen's brother — Resigns, 
on his marriage, his cardinal's hat — St. Paul's — Remark 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



of Spanish ambassador to James — Tyrconnell — Folly of 
the Irish — Intemperance of their priesthood — Base 
money of James — Ill-treatment of the Irish Protestants 
— Chancellor Fitton — French auxiliaries — "William — 
Penal laws — Huguenots— Cruel treatment of them — 
Treaty of Limerick — Bill of Exclusion — Calamities — 
Priestly presumption — Anecdote — Mary Beatrice — 
Chevalier St. George — Advice of James to his son re- 
specting the Irish — Vicissitudes of Rice, Chief Baron — 
Dr. Doyle's opinion on the propriety of the penal laws 
— Ultramontane priesthood — Their dangerous prin- 
ciples 50—76 



CHAPTER IV. 

Penal Code — Roman Catholics — Reformation — Reign of 
Queen Anne — Elector of Hanover, afterwards George I. 
— Further intrigue of France — Its failure in Ireland — 
Severities against the priests — Their justification— First 
Pretender — Roman Catholics of that day — Celtic race — 
Swift — His estimate of the Roman Catholics — Fontenoy 

— Charles Edward the second Pretender — Bishop 
Berkeley — Viceroy alty of Chesterfield — Roman Catholic 
Clergy — Bishop Berkeley to Roman Catholic Clergy — 
Their address to Bishop Berkeley — Reflections — Degra- 
dation — Crimes — Retrospect — America — United States 
— Its new Constitution — Catholicism — Volunteers — 
French Revolution — British dragoons in Roman States 

— Pope Pius VI. — Republican France — Sacrilegious 
treatment of that Pope by the French — His death — 
British marines in Rome — Stuart race — Penal Code — 
Relaxations — Ireland — Elective franchise — Earl Rosse 

— Remarkable predictions — Their realization — Re- 
flections — Curran — Burke — Maynooth — Priesthood — 
Contrast— Maynooth-reared priests— Slavery — Tyranny 
— Agitation — America — Scotland — England — Ireland — 
Press— Andrew Marvel — Races — Trench Directory — 
Theobald Wolfe Tone — Invasion — French Fleet in 
Bantry Bay — Its dispersal— Rebellion — Lords Mountjoy 
and O'Neill — France —The Hoche— The Donegal — 
Wellesley— Wellington— The Union . . . 77—112 

b 



X 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



CHAPTER V. 

The French as invaders — The Eoman Catholic Bishops — 
Maynooth — Clergy — Contrast — Grattan — Father 
O'Leary — First Consul — Napoleon — Emperor — His ex- 
communication — His son made King of Rome — 
Napoleon II. — Fontainebleau — Waterloo — Works of art 
— Canova — Rome — Pope Pius VII. — England — France 
— Inquisition in Italy — Modern Rome — Clerical 
ascendancy — Papal recantation — Tuscany — Italy — 
France — French occupation of Rome' — St. Peter's — 
Revival of Imperial dynasty — Catholic exclusion — Their 
claims— Professions — Their opponents — Their appre- 
hensions — Secretary, afterwards Sir Robert Peel — 
Catholic pledges — Declaration by Mr. O'Connell, that he 
was not a papist — Abbd Roy — Altered tone at Rome — 
Papal pretensions — Connexion between Church and 
State — Catholic petitions — Oaths — Casuists — Hypocricy 
— Established Church — Lord Plunket — Duty of Catholic 
gentry — Evidence of Catholic leaders and prelates — 
Their declarations and professions — Bill of Rights — 
William of Orange —Coronation oath — Sheil — Pennenden 
Heath — Catholic Association — Emancipation — Pre- 
dictions — Mr. Sadler — Catholic gratitude — Catholic 
prelates— Wellington ...... 113-143 

CHAPTER VI. 

The wings — Opposition to them — Violence and faithless- 
ness of the leaders — State provision for priesthood — 
Contemplated control of Government — Proposed 
measures — Anticipated benefits — Unreasonableness of 
priesthood — Domestic nomination — Its violation in the 
person of Paul Cullen — Armagh — Dublin — Stipendiary 
priesthood — Religious processions — Their condemnation 
by the Roman Catholic Bishops — Proclamation — Un- 
warrantable excitement — Papal encroachments — 
Aggression — Doctor McHale and Cardinal Wiseman- 
Ecclesiastical Titles Bill — Parliamentary reform — 
Municipal reform — Resolutions of Bishops — Scottish 
Union — Reformation — Church property — Viceroy alty 



CONTENTS. 



— Abolition recommended —Union — Steam — Electric 
light — Catholic Bishops favourable to Union — Their 
motives — Mania for repeal of Union —Agitation for the 
repeal — Its absurdities — Catholic prelates and priests — 
Delusion — Imprecations of priests — Visitation of Pro- 
vidence — Smith O'Brien — Young Ireland — O'Connell — 
Contrast— Wellington 144—176 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Protestant gentry— Sir Francis Head— His question and 
his answer — Social evils traceable to the Priests — 
Tenant-right — Lord Clare — Agrarian law at Rome — 
Grazing — Depopulation — Sir Thomas More — Lord- 
keeper Coventry — Famine — Emigration — Celtic priests 
— Representation — Sheil — Curran — Priestly influence — 
Intimidation — Their selections — Contrast — Queen's 
Colleges — Papal and priestly opposition to education — 
Early anxiety of Catholic gentry for education — Doctor 
Doyle favourable to mixed education — Bigots of Synod 
of Thurles — Wordsworth — Apostate priests of Oxford 
— Cranmer — Wolsey — Armagh — Slavish opinions of the 
apostates — English Catholicism — Infallibility of the 
Pope — Formerly denied by the Catholics — University 
of London — Stonyhurst and Oscot — Catholic University 
— Contract — Pascal — Galileo — President Newman — 
Dunciad — Philip II. — Continental seminaries — May- 
nooth — Gallican Church — Ultramontane doctrines — 
Irish constabulary — German State of Hesse — Catholic 
Protestants — Jews — Priests of Meath — Mr. Gladstone — 
Neapolitan States — Madiai — Papal and other States of 
Italy — Royal Colleges — Proposed extension — Prelimi- 
nary education for Priests there — Degrees in Divinity 
— Improvement of priesthood — Francis I. — Concordat 
— Napoleon — Power of State over Priesthood — First 
French Revolution — Prospects from last — France — 
Rome — Despotism — Arming of France — Spirit of 
England — Priests — Civil war — Invasion of Ireland — 
Catholics — Protestants — Comparison — British fleets — 
Wellington — Trophies — Naval architects of England — 
Armada — Elizabeth — Dismay at Rome — Inquisition — 
French expedition to Ireland — Its fate — Bantry Bay — 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



Tone — National regiments of militia — Aliens — Indigna- 
tion — Sheil — Appeal in Parliament — Papacy — Contract 
— Great Britain — Free institutions — Fidelity — Exten- 
sion — Catholic freedom — Hostages for allegiance — Civil 
and religious liberty — Conclusion .... 177 — 220 



HISTORICAL OUTLINES 



OF 

POLITICAL CATHOLICISM. 



CHAPTER I. 

" A clergy," declared the prophetic Burke, " who are 
not restrained hy the most austere subordination, will 
become a nuisance, a real public grievance of the heaviest 
kind, in any country that entertains them." That subor- 
dination, to which the most eminent advocate of civil and 
religious liberty thus referred, is twofold. First, to the 
government, laws, and institutions of the State which 
protects the priesthood in their civil rights ; next, to the 
doctrines, discipline, and tenets of the Church of their 
religious ministration.* The principles that ought to 
govern clerical subordination are best studied in the 
precepts of the Divine Founder of Christianity. The 
truest interpreter of those precepts is the life of Him 
whose words were the emanation of Heaven ; whose 
morals were as pure as his charity was unbounded ; 

* " L'Ecclesiastique doit compte de ses talens, autant a son 
Prince, et a la patrie, qu, a la religion dont il est ministre." — Abbe 
Boy. 

B 



2 RELIGION OF CHRIST — CHURCH OF ROME. 



whose humility was as unaffected as his origin was 
exalted ; whose benevolence was as universal as his 
mission was sublime. Of Him who, above human preju- 
dice, appeared a poor man amongst the poor ; who, 
endowed with omnipotence, inculcated equajity ; who, an 
enemy to tyranny, announced that the truths he taught 
would make all men free ; who, despising ambition, 
preached peace on earth ; who, Sovereign of the spiritual 
world, acknowledged his temporal allegiance ; who, born 
in Judea, submitted to the laws and civil authority of 
imperial Rome.* 

The religion of Christ has, however, unfortunately for 
the liberties and happiness of man, been but rarely the 
religion of Christendom. That faith, designed to be a 
mild and endearing bond of amity amongst men, has 
been too often wielded as a desolating instrument of 
discord. That theology has been denounced as false, 
which, by an impious converse, makes man according to 
God's image, and plants infernal passions in his breast.f 

The tyranny of the Church of Rome has always 
assumed two phases, — despotism and intolerance. The 
first it exercises over the members of its own ; the latter, 
over the members of every other creed. Happy would 
it be for the destinies of men, could the aphorism of 
Andrew Marvel be realized in the priesthood of every 
creed : " There is nothing that comes nearer the divine 
perfection, than to enjoy a capacity of doing all the good 
imaginable to mankind, under a disability to do all that 
is evil." J 

To the intrigues, intemperance, and treachery of the 

* Essay on the Eoman Catholic Keligion. 
f Sheil. 

% Works of Andrew Marvel. 



PRIESTLY DOMINION — ERA OF REFORMATION. 



3 



priesthood, can Catholic Ireland trace her decline and 
degradation in every age, from the days when Nicholas 
Breakspear, the only English pope, betrayed the island 
to his countryman, the Second Henry of England. That 
transfer has been characterised by the Catholic historian, 
Thomas Moore, as " an audacious transaction, presenting 
in all respects a perfect instance of that sort of hypo- 
critical prelude to wrong, that holy league, for the 
purposes of rapine, between the papal and regal powers, 
in which most of the usurpations, frauds, and violences of 
those dark and demoralized times originated."* The 
priestly chronicler of her annals assures us, that after his 
invasion, the first measure of that monarch " was to 
cover the country with monasteries for her subjugation." f 
Under priestly dominion in succeeding reigns, that 
subjugation was delegated to restless adventurers, who, 
rude and uneducated, threw off the control of English 
institutions, and degenerated to the level of the con- 
quered. While they bowed superstitious obedience to 
the papal Church, retaining the vices of partial civiliza- 
tion, they superadded the adopted depravity of uncul- 
tivated ferocity. Intermittent massacre was succeeded 
by retaliatory extermination ; temporary truces only 
induced more sanguinary outbreaks ; purchased pardons 
only encouraged fresh insurrections. J 

The Reformation partitioned the Christian world. From 
that era a large portion of the subjects of the Crown was 
found antagonistic to the creed of the State ; persecution 
became the favourite instrument on both sides for the 
propogation of faith ; and the accusations of history, when 

* Moore's History of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 204. 

f Taaffe's Ireland, vol. i. 

X Clarke's Memoirs of the Supremacy. 

B 2 



4s ENGLISH PROTESTANTISM — IRISH CATHOLICISM. 



impartial, are equally severe on both. When bribes and 
terror were found unsuccessful inculcators of doctrine, 
the sword, the scaffold, and the stake were adopted by all, 
as the most persuasive and merciful expedients to eradi- 
cate errors which reasoning could not remove. The 
little advance made by the Reformation amongst the 
native Irish, is attributed by high authority — " to the 
national feeling which in happier countries was directed 
against Rome, being in Ireland directed against Eng- 
land." * With English Protestantism, Irish Catholicism 
accordingly became the touchstone of treason, — conse- 
quent cruelty the certain herald of revolt, — and papal 
intrigue seized every occasion to kindle the conflagration 
of rebellion. In a succession of rebellions defeat was 
hereditary, and the Irish invariably acquired the guilt 
without the glory of war. 

Under the dominion of the priesthood, Ireland has ever 
been the theatre of an unbroken chain of calamity ; their 
intemperance, exciting and misleading the people, the 
cause of the long servitude of both. Even though aided 
by the arms and treasures of Spain, the jealous machina- 
tions and formidable hostility of France, — the spiritual 
protectorate of Rome, when grasping at political influence, 
has ever proved but the shadow of death to Ireland. 
Subserviency to foreign influence constantly exciting 
resistance to legalized authority, the first law of nature — 
self-preservation — necessarily dictated measures of secu- 
rity to power. The forfeiture of civil rights accordingly 
became, by form of law, proscriptive as well as remedial, 
aggressive as well as retaliatory — the retributive fate of 
those — whose lives the sword had spared, and the remnant 
of whose properties had escaped former confiscations. In 
* Macaulay's Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes. 



PENAL CODE — CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 5 

tracing back the origin and causes of the penal laws, 
when we remember the haughty tone in which the Church 
insulted sovereigns as well as subjects, — the zeal with 
which, in the desperate agonies of her decline, she armed 
the people against authority, — the pertinacity with which 
she sought to establish her despotism on the ruins of civil 
liberty, although sensibility may see in their enforcement 
much to lament, justice will find in their enactment but 
little to condemn. 

The penal code had its source in the dark and rugged 
days of our ancestors ; it gradually became mild and 
mitigated as it descended into more cultivated times. 
After successive but partial relaxations, the eloquent 
Curran thus beautifully hailed their extensive remission 
in 1793 : — "If we look back with sorrow to their enact- 
ment, let us look forward with kindliness and gratitude 
to their repeal. Produced by national calamity, they 
were brought by national benevolence as well as by 
national contrition to the altar of public justice and 
concord, and offered as a sacrifice to atone, to heal, to 
conciliate, to restore social confidence." Associated with 
that repeal, as its first appearance in public life, is a 
name the most illustrious of our age. For that name 
was reserved in 1829, their total extinction — an act add- 
ing one, and that perhaps not the least to its many titles 
to immortality ! 

The measure of Catholic Emancipation was in ampli- 
tude as large, as noble, and as fearless as the heart of the 
warrior by whom, as then first minister of the Crown, it 
was conceived and conceded. Undismayed by danger in 
the field, unmoved by difficulties in the Cabinet, un- 
daunted by the opposition of popular prejudice, unawed 
by open hostility from the Throne — in policy as in war, 



6 



WELLINGTON — PAPAL STATES. 



he trod down what other minds deemed impossibilities. 
The eye that was omniscient in the storm of battle — could 
not perceive in the deferential humility of the supplicant, 
the dissembling guise of deceit. The truest heart that 
ever beat in the breast of man — could not believe that in 
the ardent desire to recover political rights, there lurked 
a secret design to reconquer religious supremacy. He 
trusted in the solemn professions of men, with the con- 
fiding sincerity of a soldier ; 

" Artless save in the warrior's art, 

And in that art the first." — Croker. 

In unrivetting the fetters of his countrymen, he rejected 
the galling shackles of proffered securities — despising the 
past, he hoped to guide the future. His magnanimity 
disdained to make the surrendered independence of the 
Church the ransom of Catholic freedom. In extinguish- 
ing the remnant of the penal code, he raised the Catholic 
from the abject state of helotism to a level in citizenship 
with himself — and that self was Wellington ! 

History is our preceptress, and the essayist who strives 
to trace the calamities of nations to their causes, must 
unfold her darkest and most gloomy pages. A man 
should be equally fearful of suppressing what is true as 
of publishing what is false. Power in the hands of a 
political priesthood has been invariably found fatal to 
popular liberty, subversive of national advancement. 
High Catholic and clerical authority admits the preroga- 
tive of the pontiff as a sovereign in the Papal States, to 
be " a despotism diametrically opposed to the interests of 
the people and the personal happiness of the prince."* A 



* Eustace's Classical Tour in Italy. 



AMBITION OF CLERGY — ELIZABETH. 



7 



calm and attentive review of history connected with the 
Catholic priesthood at home leads to unerring conclusions. 
Ever servilely devoted when weak, that clergy have been 
always dangerously ambitious when they fancied them- 
selves strong. When oppressed, they have ever asserted 
the principles of religious equality — admitted to civil 
rights, they have ever advanced claims to religious 
ascendancy— sectarian aggrandizement. Wherever and 
whenever priestly dominion has attained the ascendant, 
rational liberty has become proportionately depressed. 
These axioms may also be deduced from the too rarely 
consulted testimony of history. All enterprizes in 
which that clergy have assumed or seized the helm, have 
invariably drifted into the current of fatal miscarriage. 
Every attempt by them to revive or extend their power 
beyond its fitting sphere, has been signally marked by 
public misfortune. National honour, happiness, liberty, 
prosperity, always advance with the retreat of the priest- 
hood into sanctified retirement. These pages are intended 
to elucidate these propositions, — by recalling the crimes, 
follies, infatuations, vicissitudes, exclusions, indignities, 
remonstrances, professions and perfidies of past genera- 
tions for the instruction, — the admonition of this ! 

1558. The ministers of Elizabeth had been attentive 
observers of events during the Catholic dominion of 
Mary. The pope, originally but a bishop, was placed 
by an imperial edict at the head of the prelacy. When 
the head of the empire had abandoned, or was driven 
from the imperial dominion he had exercised over 
mediaeval Rome, the pontiff, seeking to strengthen his 
spiritual by the acquisition of temporal power, claimed 
as the inheritor of his rights. The insurrections which 
Elizabeth had to subdue in Ireland, according to Ranke, 



8 



INQUISITION AT ROME — POPEDOM. 



were almost all instigated by Rome :* the conspiracies 
against her in England could be traced to the same 
source. Paul IV. was pope on the accession of 
Elizabeth ; he had introduced the inquisition into 
Rome, an institution founded by St. Dominic, after one 
which had existed amongst the Jews in the time of 
Christ, and had been sanctioned by the Talmud.t It is 
a gratification, at least, to believe that its origin was 
unchristian ; and on the death of that pope, the Roman 
people rushed to destroy the building, the seat of the 
inquisitorial tribunal. J Paul replied to the ambassador 
of Elizabeth, that England was held only as a fief of his 
see ; but he did not long survive his vain and arrogant 
assertion. He died on the 18th of August, 1559, and on 
the 29th of December following, Pius IV. assumed the 
tiara. This pontiff had seen that the efforts to enforce a 
compelled conversion had been abortive, and in an official 
letter to Elizabeth of the 5th of May 1560, he sought to 
cajole the Queen. " You may promise to yourself," said 
he, " all things you can desire from us, not only for the sal- 
vation of your soul, but also to establish and confirm your 
royal dignity by our authority." Thus was an alliance 
proffered, by a power ever infallible, to one who had been 
excommunicated by his predecessor — as a bastard, a heretic, 
and a usurper,, — that was to legitimize her in birth, lineage 
and orthodoxy. This pope also sent an eminent ecclesiastic 
as ambassador specially to conciliate Elizabeth, but on 
reaching Calais he was refused admission into England. 
Pius IV. further urged the Queen to send an envoy to 

* Ranke's History of the Popes : Kelly's translation. Whit- 
taker and Co., Loud. 1843. 

t The Rev. J. Wolff's Journal, vol. i., p. 312. 

X Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. xii., p. 155. 



DUKE OF ALVA. 



9 



the Council of Trent, and to allow her prelates to attend, 
but she refused;* the intractable arrogance of his prede- 
cessor had irrevocably decided the reformation of the 
Church in England. The State Council, in their discus- 
sions on the 1st of May 1561, respecting permission to 
a nuncio to visit England, explained their suspicions of 
the pope : — " What an abuse is this to bear us in hand, 
that no harm is meant by the pope, when he hath already 
done as much as in him lieth to hurt us. The pope even 
at this moment hath his legate in Ireland, who is already 
joined with certain traitors there, and occupied in stirring 
a rebellion." + Whatever hopes there might have been 
of reconciliation, expired on the death of Pius IV. in 
December, 1565 ; and he was succeeded by Pius V., who 
had been originally selected by Paul IV. to preside over 
the Inquisition at Rome. This holy incendiary, forgetting 
that the different branches of Christianity are but so many 
ways to the same end, adopted the never-failing resource 
of terrified intolerance — threats and persecution. He 
stimulated, by pontifical epistles, the frightful atrocities of 
the ferocious Duke of Alva in Flanders, in 1568. The 
Council of Alva, to carry out the commands of the pope, 
is the execration of history, under the designation of " The 
Council of Blood !" J In 1569 Pius sent his troops, 

* Charles Butler, His Mem., vol. i., pp. 152, 153. 
f Hardw. State Papers, vol. i., p. 184. 

X Gibbon observes — " A melancholy truth obtrudes itself on 
the reluctant mind, — that the Christians, in the course of their 
intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each 
other, than they had experienced from the zeal of Infidels."' In 
the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand subjects 
of Charles V. are said by Grotius, a man of genius, learning, and 
moderation, to have suffered by the hand of the executioner. 
"If we are obliged," adds Gibbon, "to submit our belief to the 
authority of Grotius, it must be allowed that the number of Pro- 



10 



PERSECUTION— PIUS V. 



under Sporza, into France, to punish, by the infliction of 
every severity, the heretics and their leaders. In his 
letters to Catherine de Medici, he insisted upon her not 
sparing the enemies of heaven — they must be massacred — 
they must be exterminated ; and, with the insanity of his 
self-deluding bigotry, he added, that he prayed for it 
every day.* With infatuation incredible, he directed the 
Cardinal Lorraine to convince the king, that he cannot 
satisfy his Redeemer, without being inexorable to all who 
should dare petition him ;t and in a letter to Charles IX., 
he commanded him to listen neither to the prayers of 
blood nor kindred. J Against Elizabeth, whose policy was 
purely defensive, the cruel pontiff hurled fulminations 

testants who were executed in a single province and a single reign, 
far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in three centuries and 
of the Eoman empire." He adds, in a note, that Fra Paolo, an 
historian of the Church who resided at Venice (Istoria del Concilio 
Tridentino, lib. iii.), reduces the number of the Belgic martyrs to 
fifty thousand. (Milman's edition of Gibbon's ' Decline and Fall of 
the Eoman Empire ;' vol. ii., pp. 501, 502). Charles V. died in 1558. 
The Government of Alva in the Low Countries commenced in 
August, 1567 ; he returned to Spain in December, 1573. Alva 
boasted to Count Koningstein, uncle to the Prince of Orange, that 
during his government in Flanders of six years and a half, he con- 
signed more than eighteen thousand heretics to the public execu- 
tioner, besides a much greater number whom he put to the sword 
in the towns which he took, and in the field of battle. (Robert- 
son's ' History of Charles V. ;' Watson's ' History of Philip II. of 
Spain.') It has been calculated that about two hundred persons 
suffered for their religion during the reign of Elizabeth in England. 

* See the extracts from the original letters in Latin in Sharon 
Turner's ' History of England,' note, vol. xii., pp. 182, 183. 

t " Cherchez a le convaincre que sa Majest6 ne pourra satis- 
faire le Redempteur, quam, si omnibus qui pro sceleratissimis 
hominibus rogare audebunt, se inexorabilem jorobeat." — Letter to 
Cardinal Lorraine, 13th April 1569, p. 56. 

J " Qua in re, nullius preces admittere, nihil cujusquam san- 
guini et propinquitati concedere." — Letter to Charles XI., p. 61. 



HIS DEATH -BED — CANONIZATION — PAPAL BULLS. 11 

insulting and audacious, urging her subjects to assassina- 
tions and conspiracies; and in 1569 he strove to incite 
the Irish to rebellion — by a promise of the same plenary 
indulgence which had been conferred in the Crusades. 
His pontificate commenced on the 7th of January 1566, 
and ended on the 1st of May 1572; but he did not die 
until he had created that infernal spirit — which immediately 
after, in the same year, exhibited itself in the massacre of 
St. Bartholomew — an event which humanity will never 
forget, nor recollect but with universal and unutterable 
horror. Pius, on his death-bed, on reviewing his pontifical 
life, is said to have exclaimed — " When I was in a low 
condition, I had some hopes of salvation ; after I had been 
admitted to be a cardinal, I greatly doubted it ; but since 
I have come to be a pope, I have no hope at alL" Pius 
was beatified in 1672, and canonized by Clement XI. in 
1712 ; but Charles Butler, a high Catholic authority, in 
order to palliate his posthumous honours, assures us, that 
in canonizing a saint, the Church is far from canonizing 
his acts.* 

" The bulls," said Bossuet, the most eloquent ornament 
of the Catholic church, " of Paul HI. against Henry VIII., 
and of Pius V. against Elizabeth, were waste paper — 
despised by the heretics, and in truth by the Catholics. 
Treaties, alliances, commerce — everything went on as 
before, and the popes knew this would be the case ; still 
the Court of Rome, though aware of the inability of its 
decrees, would publish them to support its chimerical title. 
The heretics took advantage of them, and the Catholics 
suffered much by them, as occasion was taken in conse- 
quence to punish the Catholics — not as Catholics, but as 
public enemies — as men ever disposed, when the pope 
* His Mem., vol. i., pp. 196, 197. 



12 



PAPAL ATTEMPTS ON IRELAND. 



should order, to revolt against the Crown."* Gregory 
XIII., in 1576, renewed the fulminations of Pius V. 
against Elizabeth, with additions of his own, but with 
equal success. His predecessor had forgotten Ireland in 
his excommunication ; that of Gregory deprived the Queen 
of her Crown of Ireland, precisely as that of Pius V. had 
denuded her of that of England ! 

During the pontificate of Gregory XIII., an English 
refugee, Thomas Stuckley — a mere adventurer — resided 
at Rome. The pope appointed him his chamberlain, 
created him Marquess of Leinster, and, in order to enforce 
his bull against Elizabeth, furnished him with a ship and 
troops to invade Ireland. It was arranged that Stuckley 
should form a junction on the French coast with a small 
military force which Geraldine, an Irish refugee, had 
assembled there, also by means of assistance supplied by 
the pope. Stuckley, whose trade was fighting, was per- 
suaded, after he had sailed, to take part in the expedition 
which King Sebastian had fitted out for the coast of 
Africa, in which, as soldiers of the pope were generally 
unfortunate, Stuckley was killed. Geraldine having, 
therefore, to try his fortune alone, landed in June 1579, 
and after various ill success, was also slain. The Earl of 
Desmond, on the landing of Geraldine, had revolted 
against the Queen, but the papal aid proved inadequate ; 
the money that had been promised by the pope, never 
arrived : Desmond could therefore hold out no longer, 
and the English, as usual, were victorious. They punished 
those who had joined in the insurrection with the most 
frightful severity. The whole province of Munster was 
devastated, and colonists crowded from England to occupy 



Defence de la Declaration du Clerge, 1. iv., c. 23. 



SIXTUS V. 



IS 



the country — after it had heen reduced, by the extirpation 
of the rebels, to a desert.* 

The tiara descended from Gregory to Sixtus V. on the 
10th of April 1583. Sixtus had been employed by 
Pius V. to draw up the celebrated bull of excommunica- 
tion which that Pope had fulminated against Elizabeth, 
and Sixtus probably owed his elevation to its success. 
He had also prepared the famous bull "in Ccena domini" 
afterwards so much an object of admiration with all insub- 
ordinate priests, by which ecclesiastics were exempted 
from taxation and from civil jurisdiction. The first move 
of Sixtus was to send a proposal to Elizabeth soliciting 
her to return to the bosom of the Church. The Queen, 
on reading it, laughed, and sent no reply. On hearing 
the manner his request had been received, Sixtus declared 
that he must seriously think of wresting the kingdom from 
her by force. f As pope, at the period of the Armada, his 
anathemas and benedictions were of course invaluable 
auxiliaries to Philip of Spain in his aggression upon Eng- 
land. The terrors and intrigues of the popedom drove 
Elizabeth to retaliate by cruel persecutions against the 
English Catholics — persecutions which disgrace her reign 
and dishonour her memory. When, however, Elizabeth 
wanted soldiers, her subjects crowded around her, and 
the Queen learned from events to distinguish, between 
Catholics by conscience — and Catholics by faction — a dis- 
tinction taken by Walsingham, % which still too palpably 
exists. 

The approval by Rome of the preconcerted massacre 

* Ranke's History of the Popes, translated from the last German 
edition, with an introduction by D"Aubign6, 1846, vol. i., p. 438. 
t Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. i., p. 492. 
% Walsingham's Letter. 



14 



ARMADA. 



of St. Bartholomew, — the most frightful concentration of 
cruelty in the annals of Christianity, — and threatened 
assassinations of the Queen, excited the terrors and in- 
dignation of Elizabeth against the Catholics. Penal 
were introduced as protective laws, in reality to check 
foreign intrigue, to resist papal audacity, — as Elizabeth 
hypocritically announced " to humanize her semi- bar- 
barous subjects." Amongst their provisions were fines to 
enforce conformity : these Strafford afterwards, on his 
impeachment, declared " were an engine rather to draw 
money out of men's pockets, than to raise a right belief in 
their hearts." 

1583. The enterprize of the Armada, aimed at the 
bulwark of Protestant faith, exhausted the resources of 
Catholic Spain. The spirit of the Queen relied on the 
courage of the people. England rose simultaneously in 
arms, and awaited the invaders with confidence, contempt, 
defiance. As an earnest of what England had to expect, 
with two thousand and eighty-eight slaves,* — one hundred 
and eighty Jesuits and priests were embarked in the 
expedition, — designed as well for the religious as the 
national subjugation of the country. An armory of 
engines of torture for the conversion by the extirpation 
of heretics, formed the equipment of the meek and pious 
soldiers of the Church. While prayers were being fer- 
vently offered up for its safety — its success — disaster 
crowded on disaster. Baptized "invincible" by the bene- 
diction of the pope, it met on the shores of Britain dis- 
comfiture and defeat — signal and ignominious. Nothing 
shook so much the power of the popedom in the minds of 
the people, as the consciousness that its fulminations rolled 
by them harmless and unheeded. Religious bigotry 
* Strype, vol. iii., part ii., p. 535. 



SPANISH EXPEDITION TO IRELAND— DEFEAT. 15 



attempted in vain the perversion of public spirit — national 
honour prevailed with native loyalty ; — the English Catho- 
lics, indignant that the soil should be stained by the 
hostile foot of the stranger, were zealous in the defence 
of their country. Under the strong government of Eliza- 
beth — attachment to their allegiance was the characteristic 
of the English Catholic laity. Howard, the high 
admiral of England, the head of the Protestant states of 
Europe, was a Catholic ! If the invasion of the Armada 
had been successful, glorious England might have been 
disgraced by becoming, at least for awhile, what Spain 
has long been, and now is, the kingdom of the monkish 
cowl, the superstitious slave of inquisitorial tyranny, the 
seat of intellectual night. 

When Don Juan D'Aguilla landed, in 1601, with that 
Spanish force which afterwards capitulated at Kinsale, he 
was induced by the Irish priesthood to assume the title of 
" General in the holy war of the Faith." While he pro- 
claimed defiance to England, he issued a manifesto to the 
credulous Irish, that he was come to execute the com- 
mands of the pope, and establish Catholic supremacy in 
Ireland. " He endeavoured to impress upon them," ob- 
serves a writer of the day, " what power religion and gold 
have upon the hearts of men ; both which the Spaniards 
brought with them into Ireland."* Notwithstanding their 
profuse introduction, the Spaniards, who came with a vain 
hope of meeting the whole kingdom at their devotion, 
found themselves confined within an inconsiderable town, 
unassisted by the natives, and besieged by the forces of 
the Queen, f Elizabeth little apprehended the result. 

* Morryson. 

t Elizabeth seems to have formed as contemptuous an estimate 
of the priest-ridden Spaniards in her days, as Nelson did in ours. 



J 6 



IRISH REBELLIOUS CHIEFTAINS — THE QUE EX. 



In a letter, she thus directs Mountjoy : " Tell our army 
from us, to make full account that every hundred of 
them will beat a thousand, and every thousand theirs 
doubled."* 

O'Neill, who, in 1 596, in his letter of supplication, had 
" craved her Majesty's pardon on the knees of his heart,"t 
was again in arms against the Crown in the north. The 
Irish chieftains prostrated themselves before the pope, 
and solicited succour from him " as the father of spirits 
on earth."t To ensure success to O'Neill against the 
English, Clement VIII. forwarded to him from Rome a 
consecrated plume, of which the Spanish ecclesiastic, Don 
Matheo Oviedo, on whom the pontiff specially conferred 
the title of archbishop of Dublin, was the bearer. It was 
gravely attested by his holiness, that the feathers of 
which it was formed had been plucked from the wings of 
the phoenix, § — a creation of pure and early fable ; still, 
doubtless, priests vouched the fact, and the Irish reli- 

When the combined fleet, consisting of eighteen sail of the line, 
was pursued by him with ten, " Take a Frenchman a-piece," 
said he to his captains, " and leave me the Spaniards." — Southey's 
Life of Nelson, p. 312. 

* Leland's History of Ireland, vol. i., p. 396. 

t The Irish chieftains, whose principal instructors were the 
priests, were in the constant habit of imploring, by the most 
humble confessions, absolution from the Queen in the shape of 
pardons for their rebellions. The submission of M'Cartie More, 
Earl of Clancahir, appears on the patent roll of the 13th of 
Elizabeth, Dor. E. 6. He there confesses that " he had disloyally 
swerved from his allegiance, by raising traitorously her Majesty's 
subjects against her peace and laws, besieging her towns, shame- 
fully murdering and destroying her subjects, burning her castles, 
besides committing sundry grievous offences and hideous and 
detestable treasons." 

J See their Petition in Leland, vol. ii. 

§ Leland's History of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 364. 



DEFEAT — CLANRICARDE — RETURN TO SPAIN. 17 

giously believed the tale. The promise of paradise to the 
Moslem who fell fighting the Christians — having proved a 
strong incitement to the valour of the Saracens, a similar 
stimulant had been applied by the popes to the Christians 
in the holy wars. To raise to the utmost the courage of 
the Irish, a fresh papal bull was issued by Clement to 
Ireland, conferring on those who should die rebels — the 
same plenary passport to heaven, which in earlier times 
had blessed and inspired the Crusaders. Clanricarde, a 
rigid Catholic, whose loyalty has been styled an antique idol, 
to which he was ready to make any sacrifice, — although 
he had been taught by his creed to regard the soldiers of 
Elizabeth as children of heresy, still adhered with honour- 
able fidelity to the fortunes of his royal mistress. Eliza- 
beth writes in another letter to Mountjoy, " Tell Clan- 
ricarde that we do most thankfully accept his endeavours." 
Thus Ireland then possessed at least one Catholic of noble 
birth, of high spirit, in whom national honour was sacred ; 
who preferred his allegiance, the safeguard of his inde- 
pendence, to priestly dominion : 

" Among innumerable false — unmovecT — 
Unshaken — unseduced — unterrified — 
His loyalty he kept — his love — his zeal — 
Nor number, nor example with him wrought 
To swerve." — Milton. 

The veteran battalions of Spain, after defeat in every 
encounter from a greatly inferior force, surrendered by 
capitulation. Sent back in the ships of the victors, they 
palliated their disgrace — by referring to the deceptive hopes 
held out by the priests, and represented to their haughty, 
but humbled Court, the futility of further invasions. 
After the expulsion of the Spaniards, the Irish cursed 
their leaders : they, in their turn, reproached their priests. 

c 



18 



SUBMISSION OF THE REBELS. 



Tyrone, the boldest of the rebels, submitted in person on 
his knees at Mellifont to the Queen's lieutenant, in a 
habit and posture becoming his humiliation.* The fate 
of the Irish chieftains in this reign impressively illustrates 
the fatal contradiction — between abject professions of 
zealous loyalty — and headstrong outbreaks of treasonable 
ambition. Elizabeth founded the College of Dublin 
in 1591 ; during the period that Sir Nicholas Maltby 
held the government of Ireland, she had formed the de- 
sign of erecting a second college in the west. She 
traced the repeated defections of the chiefs and their ad- 
herents to the priesthood ; she states, in her letter to 
that lieutenant, "We find that the runegates of that 
nation which, under the pretence of study beyond the 
seas, do return fraught with superstition and treason, are 
the very instruments to stir up our subjects to undutiful- 
ness and rebellion."! It is to be lamented that, after a 
lapse of three centuries, education at home, supplied by a 
State endowment, has not eradicated the same vicious and 
fatal tendencies. 

It has been ihe proud boast of England that she always 
defended her shores without the interposition of foreigners. 
The efforts of foreign influence, stimulated by priestly 
intrigue, have ever been fatal to the Irish, — exciting them 
into resistance, proving unequal to their support, deserting 
them in the hour of need. With Elizabeth commenced 
the reign of precautions and treasons, of plots and con- 
spiracies, of jealousies and penalties ; closing with victory 
abroad, tranquillity at home, in it was founded that solemn 
compact between the sovereign and the subject — by which 
Protestantism became the religion of the State. While 

* O'Driscoll's History of Ireland, 
t MS. Brit. Mus.— Titus XII., p. 227. 



JAMES I. 



— AKABELLA STUART. 



19 



Catholicism in other countries still exhibits its tendencies 
to stationary inertness, to slavish submission, to ignorant 
devotion ; the spirit of Protestantism in England has 
proved itself essentially allied with the exercise of free 
inquiry, the advance of commercial enterprise, the enjoy- 
ment of national independence. 

1603. Elizabeth was succeeded on the throne by the 
son of the beautiful but unfortunate Mary of Scotland, 
who had been a rigid Catholic. Although the blood of his 
mother had been shed by Elizabeth, her crown passed to 
James by the transmission of inheritance, as easily as if 
it had been an estate. A union between England and 
Scotland by inheritance thus preceded a union by treaty. 
As the pope had anticipated that James would not con- 
sent to hold the dominion of the country as a fief of 
the papacy, Clement VIII. early determined to wrest it 
from him; and the letter of Cardinal D'Ossat, of the 26th 
of November, 1601*, disclosed the proposed project. That 
pontiff had resolved, on the death of Elizabeth, to confer 
the crown on the Lady Arabella Stuart, a Catholic, who, 
like James, had descended from Margaret, the eldest 
daughter of Henry VII., and to marry her to the Duke 
of Parma. It happened, however, that the duke had a 
wife, but his brother — the Cardinal Farnese had none. It 
was therefore decided that the cardinal should be released 
from his religious vows, and secularized by his holiness, 
for the purposes of the marriage. The Court of Spain, 
however, refused its assent, and the French king, in his 
letter to the cardinal of the 24th of December 1601, 
extinguished this papal intrigue : — " The King of Scot- 

* The letters of the cardinal, and amongst them all the corre- 
spondence relating to this project, were published in Paris in 
1698, in two volumes, with notes by Amelot de la Houssaye. 

c 2 



20 



TOLERANT INTENTIONS OF JAMES. 



land," said he, " is the right heir. * * It is an injustice 
to oppose what is just, and an imprudence to engage in 
an undertaking so little likely to succeed, as that which is 
proposed by the pope. * * The papal project would be 
attended with consequences far different to those which 
the pope expected, and render the condition of the Catho- 
lics more miserable than ever, by making them take up 
arms in opposition to the laws of the kingdom, and to the 
lawful succession of the reigning monarch."* The pope 
had, in the mean time, sent to the Jesuits in England two 
breves on the subject, with directions to have them kept 
secret till the death of Elizabeth ; but Lingard tells us 
that on the accession of James, Garnett, their superior, 
prudently committed them to the flames.f 

James, who was styled by Sully 44 the wisest fool 
in Europe," was not hostile to the religion of his mother, 
but he was averse to the attachment of the Catholics to 
Rome. He was disposed to be indulgent to Catholics by 
birth, influenced perhaps by their devotion to his mother ; 
but he hated Catholics by conversion. James fancied that 
the submissive tendencies of a hierarchy were more suited 
to the subordination of monarchical government than the 
republican notions of the Puritans ; and he hoped by con- 
ciliation to detach the Catholics from the influence and 
terrors of the papacy. The Catholics freely enjoyed the 
full exercise of their religion — so long as its ministers 
abstained from political intrigue, and from that obtrusive 
pomp of celebration which vanity alone deemed essential 
to salvation, and which was not only offensive to Pro- 
testant consciences, but an unseemly rivalry with the 
Established Church. In the reign of James, the sove- 

* Charles Butler's Hist. Mem., vol. L, p. 245. 
f Lingard's History of England, vol. viii. p. 389. 



EDWARD BRUCE — CROWX OF IRELAND. 



21 



reignty of the Roman see was for the first time incorpo- 
rated with the religious belief of Ireland.* When mea- 
sures of toleration were contemplated by James, the Com- 
mons of England thus remonstrated on the tendencies of 
that religion. " It hath a restless spirit, and will strive by 
these gradations ; if it once get but a connivance, it will 
press for a toleration ; if that should be obtained, they must 
have an equality ; from thence they will aspire to supe- 
riority, and will never rest till they get a subversion of 
our religion." When the mind reflecting upon these 
impressive sentences, which time has only made more 
vivid, contemplates the recent tone and movements of 
its churchmen, — vain is the hope of any change at least 
in them, vain the aspiration: "Rest! Rest! perturbed 
spirit !" 

On the accession of James, the Irish of that creed in 
the southern cities seized upon the churches as their own. 
The priests of Waterford announced to the King's deputy, 
Mountjoy, that " they could not in conscience obey a 
Protestant prince ;" but he soon brought them to their 
senses and to submission, by declaring that he " would 
enter the city by force, prostrate its walls, and strew salt 
upon the ruins." t We are assured, however, by the 
Catholic ecclesiastic historian, that the native Irish subse- 
quently acknowledged James the rightful king of Ireland, 
as he had descended from Edward Bruce, brother of 
Robert, king of Scotland, who in the fourteenth century 
had been elected and crowned king by their ancestors.^ 
Her Majesty the Queen derives the title of the House of 

* Phelan's History of the Policy of the Church of Rome, pp. 
14, 15. 
t Moore's Ireland. 

X Abbe M'Geoghegan, Hist, cle l'lreland, torn, iii., p. 637. 



22 



VICTORIA QUEEN — GUNPOWDER PLOT. 



Hanover to the British throne from the blood of James, 
which flowed through those of his daughter, the Princess 
Elizabeth, in the veins of Sophia of Brunswick ; irre- 
spective, therefore, of the Crown of England, Victoria 
Alexandrina is the legitimate sovereign of Ireland.* 

The hatred of the King to papal supremacy induced a 
proclamation commanding the whole Catholic clergy, 
both secular and regular, to depart England. These 
severities impelled Catesby and his Jesuit confederates in 
1605 to the guilty conception of a crime without a parallel. 
Bigoted zeal justified, in the eyes of the conspirators, an 
instantaneous massacre of all that was eminent and exalted 
in the State. As Catholics they deemed it a glorious 
vengeance, by one general explosion, to bury together 
King, Queen, Prince apparent, Lords and Commons. 
As instruments of divine justice they piously but idly 
hoped, to see the sacrilegious walls of St. Stephens blown 
into atoms, — to behold its heretical inmates perish in one 
frightful doom. The loyalty of a Catholic peer, Mount- 
eagle, disclosed the treason, rescued England from the 
calamity, Catholicity from the obloquy of its consumma- 
tion. The discovery was hailed by the rival religionists 
as a " divine illumination," " a miraculous intervention 
through the divine spirit imparted by God."f If the crime 
was Catholic, if Catholics endured the sin and shame of 
its conception, through a Catholic descended the divine 
spirit of that illumination. — Still the event, appalling in 

* The Princess Sophia became the wife of Ernest Augustus, 
first Elector of Hanover, and her son became King of England, by 
the title of George I., precisely a century after the marriage 
of his grandmother, the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of 
James I. 

t Coke — Gunpowder Plot. 



GARNETT THE JESUIT — DIGBY. 



23 



itself, roused intense indignation against the Catholics 
amongst the people. 

On the failure of the plot, and while the scaffold was 
yet reeking with guilty blood, the majority of the Catholic 
laity signed a declaration, that although they bowed to 
the scholastic dogmas of the Roman Church, they rejected 
the supremacy of the pope, and repudiated the treason of 
papal assumption, to dethrone kings, or sanctify assassina- 
tion.* The atrocity of the plot itself, the sensation pro- 
duced by the enrolment on his execution— of Garnett the 
superior of the Jesuits,*!* as a martyr ; and the declaration 
of Digby, " that no other cause drew me to hazard my 
fortune and my life but zeal to God's religion," raised 
such a storm in England, that any enormity charged 
against the Catholics, received immediate and general 
credence. In the fashionable language of the day, the 
rising religion designated themselves "gospellers;" in 
derision they styled those professing that which was sink- 
ing, " papelins." { 

In an age in which Bacon, " the wisest of mankind," 
declared, that uniformity in religion was absolutely essential 
to the support of Government, we cannot but admire the 
magnanimity of James. He refrained from punishing the 
many for the guilt of the few. In his speech to Parlia- 
ment, on the 22nd of January 1606, he declared, " that 
the conspiracy, however atrocious, should never alter in 
the least his plan of Government, while with one hand he 
punished guilt, he would still with the other support and 

* Clarke's Memoirs of the Supremacy. 

t Fuller, b. x., p. 41. — Coke, on the trial of Henry Garnett, said, 
"He had many gifts and endowments of nature, — by birth a 
gentleman, by education a scholar, by art learned, and a good 
linguist." 

X Disraeli's Secret History, vol. i., p. 81. 



24 



ROMAN CATHOLIC SUBJECTS. 



protect innocence." The Parliament was itself moderate, 
merely imposing the oath of allegiance then framed — as a 
test on every subject. 

James, scarcely recovered from the shock of his own 
escape, was terrified at the assassination of Henry of 
Navarre, by Ravaillac, a fanatic monk, in 1610. The 
promulgation of the papal breve of Paul V., transmitted 
to Holtby, the successor of Garnett, as superior of the 
Jesuits, forbidding the Catholic subjects of his Crown, 
" for the salvation of their souls," to take the oath of 
allegiance, still further aroused the hostility of James. 
Rumour, perhaps, unjustly attributed these acts to the 
Jesuits. While Macaulay concedes to that body many 
virtues — many eminent attributes — he admits that, in 
early times, " it was their office to plot against the thrones 
of apostate kings ; to spread evil rumours ; to raise tu- 
mults ; to inflame civil wars ; to arm the hand of the 
assassin."* In order, as James alleged, to secure him- 
self against men to whom were imputed such detestable 
principles, all Jesuits were commanded, by proclamation, 
to quit England, and all Catholic recusants were for- 
bidden to come within ten miles of the Court. In the 
natural horror excited by the extreme doctrines of the 
Catholic priesthood — originated the counteracting gloomy 
fanaticism of Scotland — the retributory severities of 
Puritan intolerance in England. 

Stern measures had been adopted in 1605, to suppress 
the insolence of the priesthood ; and a proclamation also 
commanded them to quit Ireland. The laws were, how- 
ever, leniently enforced. The plantation of Protestant 
Ulster, on the six counties forfeited in the preceding reign 
by the Catholic chiefs, was considered by James as the 
* Essay on JRanke's History of the Popes. 



PLANTATION OF ULSTER — CHICHESTER. 



25 



masterpiece of his policy. His pride was gratified by his 
threefold eminence — King — legislator — projector ; he 
declared a King ought to be, what he became himself, 
" the great schoolmaster of the land." To him is Ireland, 
perhaps, indebted for the vast contrast which that pro- 
vince now presents, in industrial civilization, to the more 
Catholic districts of Ireland. 

In the bitter and deadly feuds — the fierce conflicts of 
the preceding reign — massacre and spoliation had been 
deemed mere instruments of planting religion and civi- 
lization, and were not considered crimes. The reign of 
James, more mild, was generally more popular, perhaps 
from the recollections and traditions of that of Elizabeth. 
Elizabeth had striven by severities to suppress the discon- 
tented confederacies of the Irish ; James laboured by an 
improved settlement of property — by justice equably 
administered — to civilize them. "The multitude," ob- 
serves Sir John Davis, " admiring the power of the Crown 
of England, submitted themselves to the government, 
received the laws and magistrates, and most gladly em- 
braced the King's pardon, and peace was established in 
all parts of the realm with demonstrations of joy and 
comfort." With the name and wisdom of Davis is asso- 
ciated the origin of the tenant-right of Ulster. 

The Lord Deputy Chichester, in 1611, announced his 
intention of assembling a Parliament, after an interval 
of twenty-seven years. According to Lingard, " the 
avowed object was to enact new laws and obtain supplies, 
but the Catholics suspected a further design of imposing 
on their necks those penal laws which weighed so heavily 
on their brethren in England."* Additional alarm was 
also excited by the efforts of the Crown to obtain a ma- 
* History of England, vol. ix., p. 149. 



26 



COMMONS OF IRELAND. 



jority in the House of Commons. History here presents 
to us a scene resembling recent elections in Ireland. The 
clergy denounced from their altars all those who should 
presume to vote against the holy Church. They per- 
suaded the lower classes that Tyrone, who was then out- 
lawed, furnished with foreign aid, would soon again 
invade Ireland ; that those who stood firm to the ancient 
faith would soon triumph over their enemies. Hopes, 
terrors, oaths of association — all the devices of subtle 
policy and daring faction — were used to render by intimi- 
dation the privilege of voting subservient to priestly dicta- 
tion.* When the house assembled, Sir John Davis was 
proposed as speaker. The Catholics set up Sir John 
Everard, a recusant, and with tumultuous clamours seated 
him in the chair. The ministerial party exclaimed 
against the outrage, and declaring their candidate duly 
elected, after vain attempts to remove his competitor by 
force, seated Davis in the lap of Everard. The scene at 
length closed by the secession of the recusants.t 

The seditious harangues, the menaces, the open de- 
clarations of appeal to arms and foreign aid, the agita- 
tions, the cabals, the consequent popular clamours, are 
described as alarming. The temper and moderation of 
Chichester were beyond all praise : as the storm subsided, 
he recommended the discontented to appeal to the King 
in person. J 

Lingard admits, "that the deputies were graciously 
received by James." Instructed and guided by the 
wisdom of Chichester, the King heard the appellants 
repeatedly, patiently, deliberately; he censured and 

* Memoirs of the Supremacy, 
t Leland's Ireland, vol. ii., p. 448. 
X Memoirs of the Supremacy. 



RECEPTION OF DEPUTIES BY THE KING. 



27 



reproved them in language applicable to the Catholic 
clerical lieges of our lady the Queen. "In the matter of 
Parliament you have carried yourselves tumultuously and 
undutifully, and your proceedings have been r^de, dis- 
orderly, and inexcusable.* Styling them "Parliament 
recusants" in derision, he told them that they had 
failed in all their recriminations ; he declared that there 
was nothing faulty in the government of Ireland, 
"unless," said he, "you would have the kingdom of 
Ireland like the kingdom of heaven." f 

The Catholics then, as now, allying themselves with 
the priests to form, as they hoped, an Irish party, 
returned discomfited and abashed to lay the foundation 
of deeper humiliation at home. Strange that then as 
now, turbulent intimidation should be selected by them as 
the passport to a deliberate assembly. Strange that two 
centuries and a half, with all their examples, should have 
rolled over that body without any improvement in 
prudence, tone, temper — that the immutability of their 
faith should seem to preserve immutable their political 
folly. Civil liberty cannot long exist in any community 
with that class, by whom the privilege of free political 
opinion is laid as an offering on the altar. 

* Lawless, History of Ireland, p. 269. 

t The deputation consisted of Koche Lord Fermoy, the Earl 
Fingal, Richard Nugent, afterwards Earl of Westmeath, and Patrick 
Barnwall, Knight. — Bib. Dom., 624. 



28 ACCESSION OF CHARLES I. - PARLIAMENT. 



CHAPTER II. 

1625. The Parliament of England, in the reign of 
Charles I., exhibited three parties — one hostile to catho- 
licity, but not to prelacy or monarchy ; a second hostile 
to prelacy and catholicity, but friendly to monarchy ; the 
third inveterate enemies to catholicity, prelacy, and 
monarchy — the latter combining the enthusiasm of the 
zealot, with equal hatred to all, became the Independent, 
the Puritan, afterwards the republican, finally the as- 
cendant party. The fanaticism of the Puritans despised 
the ceremonials of catholicity, detested its doctrines, as 
tainted with primitive pollution. In tracing its principles, 
they fancied they had discovered the origin of monarch- 
ical absolutism. The Catholics had justified their pre- 
vious persecutions by the infallibility of their pontifical 
head ; the Puritans, relying on what they deemed an 
equally unerring guide, the Scriptures, adopted their 
example : exclaiming against toleration, they profanely 
declared that it would make the Church of Christ, like 
Noah's ark, a universal receptacle. Into such hands fell 
the ill-fated Charles ! 

The King had married in England, in the year of his 
accession, the daughter of Henry the Fourth of France, 
who had been twice a Huguenot and twice a Papist. 
The Queen was a rigid Catholic, surrounded by foreign 
priests. Grave offence had been given to the stern 



QUEEN — STRAFFORD — MASSACRE OF 1641. 29 



notions of the people by the humiliating state to which 
her confessor had reduced Henrietta Maria of England, 
by a degrading penance ; she submitted to a barefoot 
pilgrimage to Tyburn, and on the spot where the Jesuits 
had expiated their treasons, in the preceding reigns of 
Elizabeth and James, the Queen knelt and prayed to 
them as martyrs who had shed their blood in defence of 
the Catholic cause. " If," exclaimed the spectators, 
" they dare thus insult the daughter, sister, and wife of 
so great kings, what slavery would they not make us, the 
people, undergo?"* Pierre Berille, the confessor of the 
Queen, was afterwards created a cardinal. 

While Charles was nominally King, the head of 
Strafford fell on the block. May declares " that three 
whole nations were his accusers, and sought in his death 
a recompense of all their sufferings." The trial of Straf- 
ford was a departure from every maxim of criminal justice 
— he strove in vain to shield himself under laws which he 
had recently trampled down. Charles has been blamed 
for his sacrifice, but he could not save him. It has been 
asserted that Strafford had obtained the correspondence 
of the parliamentary leaders, by whom he was impeached, 
with the rebel Scots. A determination to stifle dis- 
closures exciting them to revolt at home — urging them to 
cross the borders in arms as allies of the English repub- 
licans — sealed his doom. In the same year occurred, in 
Ireland, the frightful massacre of 1641, assuming all the 
horrors of religious frenzy. Charles exclaimed, " That 
sea of blood which hath been cruelly and barbarously 
shed is enough to drown any man in eternal infamy ! " 
History asserts " that the sacred name of religion was 

* Disraeli's Secret History of Charles I. — Works, vol. ii., 
p. 379. 



30 



CASTLE HAVEN — REBELLION. 



heard on every side — not to stay the hands of the mur- 
derers, but to steel their hearts against human or social 
sympathy;" — " that the victims were marked out by the 
priests for slaughter."* " The story of the massacre," 
observes the most brilliant of their historians, " to the 
Catholics brings a feeling of retrospective shame, like that 
which wrung from Lord Castlehaven, himself a Catholic 
peer, these emphatic words : * Not all the water in the 
sea could wash away the guilt of the rebels.'"-)- The 
bigotry of either party is free to revive or treasure its 
atrocities — the consequences are sufficient for the present 
design. 

The fall of Strafford, the result of his vigorous but 
tyrannic sway, had despoiled his successors of high pre- 
rogative authority. One of the charges against him on 
his impeachment had been, that he had encouraged the 
Catholics in Ireland, and had raised an army of 8,000 
men, chiefly of that body, to assist the King against the 
people ; and Strafford, in a letter to Winderback, ad- 
mitted, " as in their purses, so also in their persons, I 
find them most eager to venture them in his Majesty's 
service." J Originally raised and disciplined by the 
Crown to suppress the rebellion in Scotland, on its 
cessation they were ready for any desperate or daring 
enterprize. Certain it is that most of the soldiers thus 
raised joined the rebel party, " though very few of the 
officers were polluted with the crime." § The Parliament 
had connived at the Irish rebellion, in order to charge 
Charles with fomenting it. It is now generally believed 

* Hume's History of England, reign of Charles I. 
f Moore's History of Ireland, vol. iv., p. 230. 
% Strafford's Letters. 

§ Borlace, p. 9. Lord Oxford's Memoirs, vol. i., p. 150. 



CONFEDERATE CATHOLICS. 



31 



that while the insurgents of Ulster were guilty of their 
excesses, they were, through the Queen and her priestly 
advisers, in constant communication with the King. Their 
design was to elevate their religion — his to secure an 
army to lead against the Parliament. Strafford had been 
succeeded by Lords Justices, who, taking tone from their 
masters, declared that the massacre had been secretly 
encouraged by the King, and recommended cruel re- 
taliation. It was said that with them, the Parliament 
pamphlets were received as oracles, their commands 
obeyed as laws, and extermination preached as gospel.* 
The undisguised determination of the parliamentary 
leaders to extirpate the Catholics, drove the lords of the 
English pale, previously distinguished for devoted loyalty, 
and their adherents, to join the aboriginal rebels of 
Ulster. Charles in his turn solicited aid from the Scots ; 
they having failed him, he imprudently looked to the 
Parliament, thus furnishing to them a pretext for further 
usurpation. Charles had alienated friends by the intro- 
duction of mercenary troopers from Germany, and the 
accessory Crowns of Scotland and Ireland increased his 
embarrassments. 

1642. The Lords of the pale and the Catholic gentry 
had in the meantime constituted themselves the " Supreme 
Council of the Confederate Catholics of Ireland." The 
motto on their seal was, " Pro Deo, pro rege, pro patria — 
Hibernia — Unanimes." While adherents were crowding 
around the standard of the confederates, the Parliament 
were levying money and collecting arms under the pretext 
of an expedition to Ireland, with the secret design of 
using them against the King. The confederates were 
gaining strength in Ireland, but Charles was gradually 
* Carte's Ormond. 



32 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE KING. 



sinking in England. In despair he again turned his eyes 
anxiously to them for aid, and sent a commission to 
Ormond to treat with his subjects in arms. Charles even 
declared his intention to visit Ireland ; this the Commons 
opposed by strong resolutions, declaring the advisers of 
such an expedition enemies of the commonwealth.* 

The King alternated between anxiety to conciliate the 
Catholics on the one hand, and apprehension of out- 
raging the Puritans on the other. The authority given to 
Ormond to abrogate the penal laws exposed the object of 
Charles, encouraged the design of the Parliament, the 
exaltation of their own power. Subservient authority was 
despised by those who aimed at the entire sovereignty. The 
vacillating King complained in a letter to Clanricarde that 
the confederates " had so far seduced that unhappy 
nation that many of them are yet persuaded that they 
serve us by rebelling against us." f They conceived that 
as Charles was in effect a prisoner, revolt against those 
who had usurped his authority, could not be treason to 
him. Castlehaven declared, " as to the parliamentarians, 
that they by all their actions showed that they looked at 
nothing but the extirpation of the nation, the destruction 
of the monarchy, and by the utter suppression of the 
ancient Catholic religion to settle and establish Protes- 
tanism. To these I could be no traitor "J 

The outbreak in Ireland had succeeded the pacification 
of Scotland, but the example of the Scotch encouraged 
the confederates. " Aware that their regulations amounted 
to an assumption of the sovereign authority, they were 
careful to convey to Charles assurances of their devotion 

* Brodie's History of the British Empire, vol. iii., p. 329. 
f Carte's Ormond, vol. iii., p. 361. 
% Castlehaven's Review. 



REMONSTRANCE OF LAITY. 



33 



to his person."* The King hoped to secure them as an 
army to lead against the Parliament, but the leaders had 
other objects. Their subsequent defiance of the Crown 
was attributed to their confidence through the priests in 
the secret protection of the Queen. -J* They naturally 
apprehended that the Puritans, if they should succeed in 
subduing their sovereign, would then direct their ambition 
against them. The Catholic laity were generally prudent 
and dignified : in the celebrated remonstrance of Trim, 
they complained thus : " the Catholics of this kingdom, 
whom no reward could invite, no persecution could enforce, 
to forsake that religion professed by them and their 
ancestors for one thousand three hundred years, are, ever 
since the second year of Queen Elizabeth, made incapable 
of places of trust and honour in church or commonwealth ; 
their nobles become contemptible, their gentry debarred 
from learning in universities or public schools within this 
kingdom, their younger brothers from all manner of 
employment in their native country,'' and necessitated to 
seek education and fortune abroad," and they " offered 
to employ 10,000 men in defence of His Majesty's royal 
rights and prerogatives." J Can the Catholics now point 
to the existence of any solitary one of these grievances ? 
The terms proposed by their commissioners at Oxford in 
March 1644, were almost identical with the propositions 
brought forward by Mr. Grattan in 1784, and with the 
relaxations of civil exclusion on the ground of religious 
faith, which distinguished the charter of Catholic freedom 
in 1829. The Catholics of the present day can, therefore, 
boast of the full and free enjoyment of every privilege, 

* Lingard's History, vol. x., p. 101. 

t Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. ii., p. 463. 

X Moore's Ireland. 

D 



34 RICHELIEU. — MAZARIN. — STUARTS. 



civil and religious, stipulated for by their ancestors in 
arms, or claimed by the immortal eloquence of their most 
illustrious advocates. 

Charles bore arms against the people in England, but 
the people first bore arms against Charles. While the 
Parliament was alternately treating with and defying the 
King, the wires of Catholic malcontent in Ireland were 
worked by the invisible hand of Richelieu. His move- 
ments were secret but simultaneous. A cardinal minister 
of France was a ready instrument of papal ambition ; and 
the Queen, with her ecclesiastical advisers, also placed 
herself under the guidance of Mazarin, his successor. 
Whatever may have been the feelings of the papal Court 
towards the unfortunate but heretical King, Ranke tells 
us that the Queen was treated at Rome with a sort' of 
official recognition, — that ministerial communications were 
kept up with her, — and that her Majesty was allowed the 
privilege of nominating cardinals, in like manner as other 
sovereigns.* The Puritans rather encouraged than sup- 
pressed the intrigues of the Roman see, — to justify their 
detestation of the hapless King, to undermine the prelacy 
and the Church. 

" As the fortunes of her Royal Lord grew darker and 
darker," observes Miss Strickland, " Queen Henrietta 
was induced to persuade him to abandon the Episcopal 
Church in England in hopes of restoration and peace." -f 
The Stuarts had ever been a faithless race. It was of 
Charles that Strafford, in the bitterness of his betrayal, 
exclaimed, " Put not your trust in princes ! " When the 
Parliament proposed to Charles, with the block almost in 
sight, the sale of lands destined for the support of the 

* Ranke's History of the Popes, Kelly's Translation, p. 274. 
f Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens, vol. v., p. 340. 



CORONATION OATH — PRIESTHOOD. 



35 



Church, he declared it not only to be sacrilegious, but a 
direct violation of his coronation oath, by which he was 
solemnly bound to maintain the rights of the clergy. 
Yet this is the same violation of the same oath at which 
a Stuart — and that Stuart a captive — recoiled, which 
the nominees of the priests, imitative of the Puritans, 
intend to propose to Victoria the First, in the plenitude of 
her power ! 

Anxiety for rapine dictated to the Parliament the 
disposal of the Irish forfeitures by anticipation ; — the ex- 
pression, " disposing of the skin before the bear was dead," 
fell from the King on receiving the great remonstrance 
of the Commons. Threatened confiscations rendered the 
high-born Irish families desperate against their ignoble 
assailants. The priesthood availed fatally of that despera- 
tion to deal out the most impartial treachery to both the 
King and the people. The reflections of Charles, in the 
instructions he bequeathed to his son, are applicable 
equally to the Puritan and the Priest. " When some 
men's consciences accuse them of sedition and faction they 
stop its mouth with the name and noise of religion." — " The 
mask of religion on the face of rebellion will not serve to 
hide some men's deformities." * 

From 1645 dates the ruinous interference of the priest- 
hood. Thenceforth the blight of their blind and bigoted 
intemperance fell upon the cause of Ireland. Their first 
movement was to insist on a new oath of association, that 
no peace should be consented to that was not approved of 
by the congregation of the Irish clergy. They then 
insulted the Parliamentary party by designating them 
" the Malignants of England," and outraged churchmen 
by deriding the Establishment as a remnant of popery. 

* Appendix to Clarke's Life of James II. 

D 2 



36 



ARRIVAL OF NUNCIO— EXCOMMUNICATIONS. 



The clergy, regular as well as secular, bound themselves 
in an oath to advance the papacy ; and while they cap- 
tivated the ignorant and superstitious, they disgusted by 
their extravagance all men of moderate opinions. While 
the lay aristocracy retained the guidance of affairs, they 
exhibited a strong desire to cultivate relations of amity, 
and to resist the encroachments of the priesthood. The 
priesthood, on the other hand, stipulated for the restora- 
tion of their religion to its ancient grandeur; and pro- 
claimed, that unless the churches and ecclesiastical 
revenues were placed at their disposal, they would resist 
any terms.* 

The interference of the clergy was the sure forerunner 
of that fate which has ever devoted the Irish Catholics to 
ruin. Intoxicated with imaginary importance, the priests 
soon broke the confederates into helpless factions. Incor- 
rigibly perverse, they thwarted every prudent measure : 
they grasped at the shadow of futile authority from 
abroad, to let go the substance of peaceful prosperity at 
home. With the arrival of an Italian priest, Battista 
Rinuncini, vanished the hopes and prospects of the con- 
federated Catholics. The nuncio of the pope, backed by 
all the clergy, assumed the style and character of dictator. 
He foolishly fancied himself and the priests to be the chosen 
of Providence to subvert the power of England. Under 
colour of keeping the sacraments from profanation, he 
availed himself of what was termed " the power of the 
keys," — a right to fulminate excommunications. He ex- 
communicated those who dared to remonstrate, and ex- 
ercised without control, in defiance of common sense, the 
functions of absolute power. In a letter to the pope, 
Rinuncini assured his spiritual master " that the Irish 
* O'Driscoll's Ireland. 



PRIESTLY INTEMPERANCE — CLERICAL REMONSTRANCE. 37 

clergy, so much despised, were, in the twinkling of an 
eye, masters of the kingdom. The supreme council were 
deprived of all authority, and confounded with amazement 
to see ohedience denied to them, and all the powers of the 
confederacy devolved upon the clergy." * The Irish 
clergy are described as having been in the Convocation 
factious, proud, presumptuous, and selfish ; zealous to 
recommend themselves to their spiritual head by their 
solicitude for his supremacy.! Feeling that the clergy 
are in some despotic countries subject only to eccle- 
siastical tribunals, amongst other extravagant demands, 
they stipulated for the extinction of the common law, so 
far as it interfered with their authority, and insisted on 
the erection of Catholic universities. So monstrous were 
the pretensions and doctrines of the ultramontane priests, 
that they were denounced by an Irish Franciscan, Dr. 
Walsh, in his remonstrance, "as contrary to the letter, 
sense, and design of the Gospel, the writings of the 
apostles, and the commentaries of their successors ; to the 
belief of the Christian Church for ten ages ; and, more- 
over, to the clearest dictates of nature." J Walsh, for 
the prudent exercise of reason, was himself abused in 
turn, — denounced as the partizan of Ormond. Bishop 
French declares, " He showed himself presumptuous, and 
too busy in censuring the cedar© and pillars of the 
Church " § 

While the power of the Church was supreme under 
the dominion of the nuncio, the Catholic laity were 
despised amidst the most extravagant plans of Romish 
ambition. The overbearing interference of the clergy, 

* Clarke's Memoirs of the Supremacy, 
f Ibid. 

X History of the Remonstrance. 
§ Works, p. 13,. 



38 



ORMOND — PRIESTLY TREACHERY. 



and the usurpations of the nuncio, dissolved the very 
elements of union, verifying the sagacity of Ormond — 
" Let them alone ! My countrymen will be sure to ruin 
themselves." * 

There were amongst the Confederates loyal and gallant 
spirits, anxious to draw their swords in the cause of the 
King, and who cried shame at his desertion in his exi- 
gencies. Many of the Irish clergy were not indisposed 
to the enterprise ; and silly though the nuncio was, he 
remonstrated with Rome on its refusal to sanction the 
oath of allegiance to a heretic King. Cardinal Pampilio 
had written to Rinuncini from the Vatican, " That it 
had been the uninterrupted practice of the see of Rome 
never to allow her ministers to make or consent to 
public edicts for the defence of the crown and person 
of a heretic King." f The nuncio, in reply, assured the 
papal see, " that all the Irish bishops had, without 
scruple, taken the oath ; and that it was so rooted in the 
minds of all the Irish, even the clergy, that if he had 
opposed it in the least, he should have been suspected of 
having other views than those of his mere nunciate." | 
The intentions of the priesthood abroad may be inferred 
from a despatch from Father O'Hertigan, their envoy at 
Paris, " that money would be sent from France, and 
after the enemies shall be expelled from Ireland, and all 
the holds of the lands put to Catholic hands, and few 
to Protestants, then you shall send men to help the King 
in England." § The confederated clergy at length resolved 

* O'Driscoll's History of Ireland, vol. i., p. 223. 

t Carte, from the Memoirs of the Nuncio. Carte, in his Preface 
to the Life of Ormond, states that the Memoirs of the Nuncio take 
up 7,000 pages 4to. From this it may be inferred that he was 
very busy while in Ireland. 

% Clarke's Memoirs. § Carte's Ormond. 



GLAMORGAN — SIGNET INSTRUCTIONS. 



39 



" that they would send no men to the King's assistance 
until such a peace should be settled as might demonstrate 
that they had really taken arms for the sake of religion, 
and to establish it in its full splendour." * The Pope of 
course approved of their determination, both perverse and 
perfidious ; and to mark his approbation of their proceed- 
ings, he re-constructed the hierarchy. 

The mission of Glamorgan | sullies the sincerity of 
Charles. Romantic promises of papal and military 
assistance had been faithlessly made by the nuncio and 
the priests. Glamorgan was sent by the King to conclude 
a treaty with the confederate Catholics, and to bring with 
him 10,000 men from Ireland. Hyde, afterwards Lord 
Clarendon, in a letter to Secretary Nicholas, observes, 
" I fear there is very much in that transaction of Ireland, 
both before and since, that you and I were never thought 
wise enough to be advised with in. Oh ! Mr. Secretary, 
these stratagems have given me more sad hours than all 
the misfortunes in war which have befallen the King, and 
look like the effect of God's anger towards us."J " My 
instructions and powers/' writes Glamorgan, in a letter to 
Clarendon of the 11th of June 1660. " were signed by 
the King under his pocket signet, with blanks for me to 

* Carte, from the Register of the Supreme Council. 

f Edward Somerset, originally Lord Herbert, created Earl of 
Glamorgan, became on the death of his father Marquis of Worces- 
ter. The patent, and extraordinary powers conferred by Charles 
on Glamorgan have been accounted for by Lord Orford on the 
ground that the King had promised him, in case of the success 
of the Royal cause, the hand of his daughter, the Princess Eliza- 
beth. Glamorgan is best known as the Marquis of Worcester, 
the supposed inventor of the steam-engine". It would seem that, 
after the Restoration, he was created Duke of Beaufort. — Gar- 
hjles Lvtters and Speeches of Cromwell, vol. ii., p. 305. 

X Clarendon's State Papers, vol. ii., p. 337 



40 WARLIKE ARCHBISHOP SLAIN. 

put in the names of the Pope or princes, to the end thai the 
King might have a starting hole to deny the having given 
me such commission, if excepted against by his own 
subjects, leaving me, as U were, at the stake." * If 
Charles could not trust the priests, the priests could not 
trust Charles ; but during the negociations of Gla- 
morgan, the English Parliament supplied the Protestant 
forces in Ulster with money, and seized upon the town of 
Sligo. The Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, marched by 
order of the Confederates, at the head of their forces to 
relieve the place, but the display of his martial predilec- 
tions ended in the unintentional betrayal of his ally. 
Probably this prelate, in throwing away the crozier to 
assume the sword, was as ambitious and vain-glorious as 
his successor John, " the Lion of the fold of Judah." 
Turbulent as a priest, he was however unsuccessful as a 
soldier, and his fate furnishes to those who tread in his 
footsteps — a salutary warning, that the union of military 
pretension with a sacred profession is unhallowed in the 
sight of Heaven. The holy warrior was slain in the affray 
by the Scots, - ]* and in ransacking his baggage the victors 
found amongst many papers of consequence, a complete 
and authentic copy of the treaty which Glamorgan had 
concluded with the Confederates, and in which was con- 
tained a distinct recital of his commission, and of his oath 
* Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae, p. 29. 

t The nuncio paid the following tribute to the memory of the 
warlike archbishop, Malachias O'Kehy. — " By his death, I under- 
stand .that the inhabitants of Connaught were left destitute of 
direction and of resolution for war, there not being there either 
persons of courage or much skill, or true union amongst those 
who were inclined for it. For a long time after this event the 
ecclesiastical party remained beaten down in the councils and 
public assemblies, where the archbishop was most powerful, both 
by his name and his eloquence." — From the Italian. 



CLERICAL PERFIDY — FATE OF CHARLES I. 41 



to them. * On reading these productions, Lord Digby 
declared " that the scandals formerly cast upon his 
Majesty for inciting the Irish rebellion were true, and 
that he designed to introduce popery even by ways most 
unkingly and perfidious." f The King having availed of 
the subterfuge to disavow his authority, the mission of Gla- 
morgan ended in his arrest for high treason ; the war- 
rant protested " against his falseness, presumption, and 
folly." + 

Perfidy lurked in the councils of the assembled clergy. 
The nuncio, in his letter to Cardinal Pampilio at Rome, 
announced that " the destruction of the King would be 
advantageous to the Irish, the triumph of the Parliament 
effectual for the establishment of popery~in Ireland." § 
Resting on such support, Charles fell, and with him the 
monarchy. Charles bitterly repented his assent to the 
execution of Strafford, declaring at his own, that he con- 
sidered the death which he was then about to suffer as 
the just judgment of Heaven for his acquiescence. || The 
Queen had seen her father perish by the knife of a 
fanatic monk ; the priests who surrounded her were the 
accessories of puritan treason, and hurried her husband 
to the block. The causes of his fall may be traced to 
the wicked efforts of papal ambition to exalt its supre- 
macy, even with the downfall of monarchical autho- 
rity On hearing of the fate of the King at Rome, " Che 
questo de tagliar teste coronate I " (" What pleasure to 
take a crowned head !") is said to have been the exulting 

* Leland's History of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 267. 
t Ibid, p. 268. 
X Carte's Ormond. 
§ Clarke's Memoirs. 
Miller's History Philosophically Illustrated, vol. iii., p. 433. 



42 



CROMWELL. 



expression of papal ambition panting for universal usur- 
pation.* 

There then arose men in England who heeded the 
terrors of the popedom less than they heeded the passing 
breeze. In place, however, of the protectorate of Crom- 
well, who has been styled "the immortal rebel," their 
priesthood pointed out the Pope to the credulous and ill 
fated Irish as their natural, assured, invincible protector. 
It is believed that the Confederates in arms were still 
fully equal on their own soil to resist any aggressive 
movements of the Parliament. Such seems to have been 
the opinion of the republican leaders themselves ; for we 
read in Ludlow, that they remonstrated with the Catho- 
lics thus ; " With respect to the point of religion, there 
was a wide difference between us ; we only contending to 
preserve our natural rights therein, without imposing our 
opinions upon others; whereas you would not be con- 
tented, unless you might have the power to compel all 
others to their imposition on pain of death." The 
Catholic population of Ireland during the convention of 
Kilkenny was estimated by Sir William Petty to exceed 
the Protestant in the proportion of fifteen to one. Under 
anything resembling subordination or discipline, the 
result in their favour must have been certain. 

When Ormond was about to lead the native army to 
oppose the usurpation and invasion of Cromwell, the 
Catholic laity besought the assembled clergy to aid him. 
Their answer was an excommunication, wherein they 
declared, — " We deliver unto Satan all that should feed, 
keep, or adhere to the Lord- Lieutenant, by giving him 
subsidy, contribution, or intelligence, or by obeying his 
commands."*)* By a fulmination of the nuncio, the city of 

* Clarke's Memoirs of the Supremacy, t O'Driscoll's Ireland, 



PRIESTLY POWER — POPULAR INFATUATION. 43 

Kilkenny, the seat of Ormond and his power, was inter- 
dicted ; the tabernacles of the churches were ordered to 
be left open, the lights to be quenched, and the admini- 
stration of the sacraments to the living or the dying pro- 
hibited.* Thus was Ormond opposed alike by the 
Puritan adherents of the Parliament — by the Catholic 
followers of the priests. Masters of the prejudices and 
passions of the people, the madness of the clergy was 
supreme with popular infatuation. The effects of their 
frantic intemperance was to paralyze all efforts, and 
afterwards to let in that tide of desolation which over- 
whelmed the clergy and their flocks in one common ruin. 
"The luckless Irish/' observes Moore, "while they 
vaunted, little foresaw what blood and suffering was in 
store for them." -f Thus did priestly intrusion — 

" Like a deadly blight, 
Come o'er the councils of the brave 
To blast them in their hour of might." 

On the nomination of Cromwell to the chief command, 
he professed that the difficulty which appeared in the 
expedition was his chief motive for engaging in it. The 
cruelties subsequently perpetrated by the iron hand of 
Cromwell, his career of spoliation, are thus traced to the 
Confederates rendered impuissant by the intemperance of 
the priesthood. The stern historian of the republic 
declares "that the new Commonwealth of England could 
never be in security or honour as long as the neighbour- 
ing island remained a theatre for the intrigues and hosti- 
lities of those by whom it was opposed. "J " It was this 

* McGhee's Life of Bishop Eothe. Duffy's Library of Ireland, 
p. 117. 

+ Moore's Ireland. 

% Godwin's History of the Commonwealth, vol. hi., p. 140. 



44 



CROMWELL IN IRELAND. 



situation of things that determined the English Govern- 
ment to put forth its military strength for the invasion of 
Ireland," and he adds, " to oppose them the Catholic was 
deficient in all the qualities of a soldier."* Necessity is 
the name under which all enormities are generally 
excused, but Cromwell declared at Drogheda, that he 
would sacrifice the Irish to the ghosts of the English 
whom they had massacred ! 

The army of the Protector, flushed with victory, com- 
bined discipline with enthusiasm, confidence with courage : 
colours blessed by the priests soon drooped before the 
broadswords of the holy warriors of Cromwell. If Crom- 
well could sigh and cant, and weep and pray, he could 
also fight. With unbounded ambition, undoubted cou- 
rage, he combined impenetrable dissimulation. Justice 
extorts this acknowledgment, that he refused, though 
solicited, to become the royal master of those whose 
servant he had sworn to remain. 

1650. The invasion of Ireland was the first military 
achievement of the Commonwealth, and in a short time 
laid the country at the feet of the Parliament. The Irish 
submitted to a power that has ever proved irresistible. A 
Catholic bishop, Nicholas French, thus described its 
progress : — " When Cromwell came over, like a lightning 
he passed through the land, taking in provinces, walled 
towns, and cities." f On the approach of danger the crafty 
Italian fled. Curry, the Catholic historian, informs us, 
' that the nuncio left, to the great joy of the principal 
nobility and gentry, and the most respectable ecclesiastics 
of Ireland." I A Catholic author, Dr. Lynch, Archdeacon 

* Godwin's History of the Commonwealth, vol. iii., p. 156. 
f Works of Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns ; Duffy's Library 
of Ireland, p. 13. X Curry's Civil Wars of Ireland. 



MISDEEDS OF RINUNCTNI — CROMWELLIANS. 45 



of Tuam, afterwards titular Bishop of Killala, declares, 
" I loved the nuncio, but I feared his ultramontane 
policy. It is most certain that he was the cause of our 
woe, and the beginning of our ruin. To the Irish his 
fulminations were most disastrous, and should therefore 
be noted in black, and ranked amongst the most inauspi- 
cious days "* The eminent Catholic bishop, Dr. Doyle, 
in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee, in 
1825, declared " Rinuncini came here as a political 
emissary, and did a great deal of mischief." f The priest- 
hood had thus forced England, in self-defence, into Pro- 
testant ascendancy ; hence arose the exclusion of Catholics 
from power. They long looked back to the days of the 
confederation with recollections of deep humiliation, shame 
at the career of their clergy, grief at the prospects it had 
blasted, horror at the desolations it entailed ! 

The Cromwellians had formed the exterminating reso- 
lution, that when they once drew the sword — they would 
throw away the scabbard. On the approach of Cromwell 
turbulent ecclesiastics became terrified at their own mis- 
deeds, and then vainly attempted to allay the disorders 
they had excited. The fanatics, however, readily 
believed that the priests had given impulse to the 
atrocities of the natives, and that feeling aggravated the 
retaliation. The English accordingly, in the frantic 
fury of their revenge, were no less cruel than the rude 
Irish had been in their barbaric outrages. Both spared 
neither age nor sex. As usual with the Irish, the retribu- 
tion was far more frightful than the attack. Panting for 
forfeitures and pillage, the only apprehension the invaders 
expressed was, of too speedy a suppression of the rebel- 
lion. Tipperary had acquired, in the days of Elizabeth, 

* Alithinologia, f Parliamentary Reports, vol. viii., p. 218. 



46 



COUNTY PALATINE. 



an hereditary title to turbulence. Spenser, who, to the 
inspiration of a poet added the characters of a secretary 
of state and a historian, informs us that shire " was the 
only county palatine in Ireland, and as the Queen's writs 
did not run in the pale of the Lord of Desmond, a privi- 
lege place of spoils and stealths."* The portion which 
did not belong to the Desmonds had been the palatinate 
of the Lords of Ormond from 1328 to 1716, when that 
jurisdiction which had previously excluded that of the 
Crown, was abolished by statute.*)* A character thus 

* View of the State of Ireland, p. 47. 

t Counties Palatine were derived from Counts Palatine, or 
Counts of the Palace, and were of Norman introduction. A very- 
learned ancient French writer thus explains their origin : — " Sovs 
la premiere et la seconde race de nos Eois, les comtes faisoient 
la fonction dans les provinces, et dans les villes capitales du 
royaume, non seulement de governeurs, may encore celle de juges. 
Leur principal employ estoit d'y decider les differents et les 
proces ordinaires de leur justiciables ; et ou ils ne pouvoient se 
transporter sur les lieux, ils commettoient a cet effet leurs 
vicomtes et leurs lieutenans. Quant aux affairs d'importance 
et qui meritoient d'estre jugees par la bouche du prince, nos 
memes rois avoient des comtes dans leurs palais, et pres de leurs 
personnes, ausquels ils en commettoient la connoissance et le 
jugement qui estoient nommez ordinairement, a cause de cet 
illustre employ — Comtes du Palais, sur Comptes Palatins " — 
Dacange, Dissertations sur VHistoire de St. Louis. Palatine, a title 
thus originally , derived from palace, conferred on those to whom 
it was delegated, the power of holding courts of justice in the 
provinces, generally in their own palaces. They had, according 
to Bracton, " Regalem potestatem in omnibus :" Lib. iii., c. 8, 
They might pardon treasons, murders, felonies : they appointed 
all judges and justices of the peace ; all writs and indictments ran 
in their names, as in other counties in the King's ; and all offences 
were laid against their peace, and not "contra pacem domini 
regis :" 4 Inst. 204. These independent palatinate jurisdictions 
were erected amongst the first feudal institutions in England, and 
subsequently introduced into Ireland as a protection to favoured 
districts against their inimical neighbours, in the hope that pecu- 



SYNODS — SUFFERINGS OF THE NATION. 47 

acquired has survived long after its causes had ceased. 
Its name was probably an additional attraction to 
Cromwell, who, pointing out its plains to his soldiers, 
exclaimed, " There is a country worth fighting for ! " 
Tipperary accordingly became to the holy warriors of the 
Protector a land of peculiar promise. If a priestly 
synod assembled at Cashel, at the dictation of Adrian, 
the only English pope, betrayed Ireland to Henry II., a 
more recent priestly synod assembled at Thurles, actually 
fancied that Ireland had been betrayed back to them ! 
An infatuation already the parent of much mischief to 
educational, industrial, intellectual, national progress. 
The atrocities of the scenes and times of Cromwell have 
been too often and too strikingly displayed on the canvas 
of history, to require to be now retouched. It has been 
well observed, that cruelties described in mass extort no 
sentiment, save that of a general unappropriated commis- 
seration. Sir William Petty says that upwards of 
500,000 people perished by the sword in massacres or 
wars between the 23rd of October 1641, and the same 
day in 1652. We have the high authority of Clarendon, 
that the sufferings of the nation from the outset of the 
rebellion to its close, had never been surpassed but by 
those of the Jews in their destruction by Titus. 

" We were then," observes the republican historian of 
the Commonwealth, " presented with one of the peculiar 
excellencies of the Roman Catholic religion, for none of 
the priests had the baseness to forsake their flocks. In 



liar privileges might render the proprietors more zealous and 
watchful in their defence. The effects alluded to by Spenser, 
were probably in after times increased by those and the adjacent 
territories having become peculiarly Cromwellian. 



48 



FLEET OF BLAKE ON PAPAL COAST. 



the days of their prosperity they had shown themselves 
ambitious and arrogant, deeply engaged in the troubled 
sea of politics, and instigating their followers to all the 
aggressions and all the obstinacy which had produced an 
eleven years' war, and had involved Ireland in miseries 
incalculable. In the hour of their trial they stood forth 
superior to human infirmity ; with resolution inflexible, 
they encountered every possible calamity, suffered the 
utmost hardships and privations, and counted nothing 
worthy their attention but the glory of God and the 
salvation of souls."* When the sea of blood had sub- 
sided, with a priesthood so humbled, so chastened, religion 
retired into seclusion and solitude. The few ecclesiastics 
who remained, poor and proscribed, assumed a simplicity 
and endured privations almost equalling those of the 
former anchorites of the desert. 

The nuncio had returned to Rome to recount in person 
his exploits. During the protectorate, an English fleet, 
the first since the days of the crusaders, sailed up the 
Mediterranean. It was led by Blake, a name illustrious 
by his valour and his achievements — a name second 
only to Nelson in the annals of naval glory. In 1653 
Blake appeared upon the papal coast ; the alarm of the 
holy city was extreme — many of the rich citizens fled 
from Rome — trains of monks paraded the streets in peni- 
tential garbs ; Blake had come to demand compensation 
for some of the piratical seizures of Rupert, which had 
been disposed of in the papal ports ; remonstrances and 
supplications were vain — the right was clear — the power 
to enforce it at hand. The fiscal of the Pope Innocent X., 
at length paid down the sum insisted on, and the ships of 
Blake returned with the only money, probably, ever 

* Godwin's History of the Commonwealth, vol. iv., p. 443. 



COXSTERXATIOX — SUBMISSION AT ROME, 



49 



transferred from the coffers of Rome to enrich the treasury 
of England.* 

The Pope subsequently endeavoured to excite a secret 
league against the Commonwealth ; but " a voice, that of 
Cromwell, which seldom threatened in vain, declared that 
unless favour was shown to the people of God, the English 
guns should be heard in the castle of St. Angel o."*f" With 
the threat ceased the intrigues and fulminations of the 
popedom against England ! 

* Dixon's Life of Blake, p. 277. 

f Macaulay's History, vol. L, p. 139. 



E 



50 



HUMILIATION OF THE CATHOLICS. 



CHAPTER III. 

" No people," declared Burke, " will ever look forward 
to posterity who do not sometimes look back to their 
ancestors." A retrospect of the past thus exhibits priestly 
authority in Ireland perishing by its own intemperance. 
Terror of the sword — the propagandism of Cromwell — had 
reduced the lay confederates to submission. It was said 
of him by Cowley, " that he conquered his enemies by 
arms, his friends by artifice." Acting on the maxim, 
build a bridge of gold for a flying enemy, republican 
England furnished ships for the Catholic Irish still in arms, 
and twenty thousand soldiers left their country for ever. 
The men whom the clergy had rendered impotent in the 
field at home — were dispersed as military adventurers over 
Europe ; " men worthy," according to Dalrymple, " of 
the happiest days of Athens or Sparta," * became merce- 
naries in the ranks of the enemies of Britain. We learn 
from Lingard, that the petition of the Catholics who re 
mained, presented to the Parliament of the Commonwealth 
on the 30th of June 1652, merely prayed " such indul- 
gence as might be thought consistent with the public peace, 
and their comfortable subsistence in their native land ;" 
an acknowledgment alike of their humiliation — of the 
justice of their doom. A peremptory order had in the 

* Dalrymple's Memoirs. 



RESTORATION. 



51 



meantime banished the priesthood * Fourteen bishops were 
driven into exile in one year ; the few that remained lurked 
about in secret : the war had left the land a desert. Whilst 
the Confederates were soliciting shelter in foreign lands, 
the followers of Cromwell, described by Swift as " a rabble 
of hypocritical, rebellious, deluding knaves, or deluded 
enthusiasts;"! men whom "no king could rule, whom no 
god could please," — men who substituted in the Lord's 
Prayer, the "Commonwealth" for the "kingdom of 
Heaven," — such men were partitioning amongst them- 
selves the estates of the exiles, and settling on them. 
These were the settlers who derived their introduction, 
and deduced their title to a secure location in the country, 
from the madness of the priesthood. ' 6 They thus gained," 
observes Swift, " by their rebellion, what the Catholics lost 
by their loyalty." It has been often remarked as a strange 
retributive distinction, that whilst the republicans were 
subsequently despised, derided, degraded, and despoiled in 
England, their descendants became in Ireland a proud, 
powerful, and tyrannic oligarchy.:]: One of the boldest 
measures of the protectorate, was its proposed intervention 
in favour of the religious liberties of France and Piedmont. 
With the life of the Protector — terminated in effect the 
government he had created. 

1660. The Restoration found the Cromwellian pro- 
prietors in possession, but the return of a member of the 
House of Stuart to the throne— brought with it back to 
Ireland many of the banished families. After the restora- 
tion of Charles II., some of the Irish prelates and clergy, 
grieved at the expulsion of the high Catholics from their 

* Swift's Works, by Scott, vol. viii., p. 442. 
t Works of Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns. 
% O'Driscoll's Ireland. 

E 2 



52 



SYNOD AT DUBLIN. 



ancient inheritances, groaning under the cruelties of the 
Cromwellian settlers, and apprehending further severities 
from the legislature, commissioned the Franciscan friar, 
Walsh, then in London, to present an address of con- 
gratulation to the King— on his return to the throne of his 
ancestors, and to implore the benefit of the peace concluded 
with Ormond, in 1646. Walsh felt that the principal 
violaters of that peace had been the priests themselves ; 
and the Remonstrance he prepared — contained a most dis- 
tinct disclaimer of the temporal supremacy of the Pope. 
This the more violent of the clergy did not approve, and 
they demanded that the terms should be debated and 
settled in a National Synod. Reilly, the Catholic Primate 
of Armagh, and French, Catholic Bishop of Ferns, both 
then in exile, wrote supplicatory letters to Ormond, en- 
treating permission to return to Ireland, and promising to 
atone for their past transgressions by sustaining the Re- 
monstrance. The Synod met at Dublin on the 11th of 
June 1666, when the Primate suddenly appeared, and 
violating his pledge, preached zealously against its adop- 
tion. It was then proposed, that such of the priesthood 
as had rendered themselves obnoxious to the laws during 
the Irish war, should implore the pardon of the Crown ; 
but they all exclaimed that they knew of no guilt or 
crime committed in that war. The whole proceedings of 
the meeting were intemperate and tumultuous. The 
majority of the priesthood, when freed from restraint, and 
panting for power, were, as usual, infatuated and incor- 
rigible. The assembly broke up without any decision ; 
the members violently inflamed against eacli other, di- 
vided into two contending factions — those who supported 
and those who opposed the Remonstrance.* The chief 
* Walsh's History of the Eemunstrance, First Treatise, part i. 



PROFFER OF THE CROWN BY THE PRIESTS. 53 

ambition of the popes for a long period after the Re- 
formation, had been to re-erect the tottering structure of 
the supremacy ; but finding the task hopeless, they seem 
to have abandoned it in despair. The dissensions of an 
Irish synod, which invariably assembles only to dispute, 
differ, and disgrace itself, seems to have inspired Pope 
Alexander VII. with fresh courage. Indignant that his 
temporal authority should be doubted or denied, he 
specially appointed Peter Talbot, brother of the after- 
wards famous Tyrconnell, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, 
for the express purpose of canonically punishing and ex- 
pelling the remonstrants. Walsh and the moderate men 
amongst the clergy were accordingly excommunicated, 
and obliged to fly. The turbulent priests were again 
triumphant, but their triumph was again destined to 
recoil heavily upon the people.* 

The priests, during their expatriation, had been hawking, 
with the approval of the Pope, a phantom crown through 
every Court in Europe. Nicholas French, the Catholic 
Bishop of Ferns, and Hugh Rochford, were the ambassa- 
dors : the terms of their commission were " to treat and 
agree with any Catholic prince, state, republic, or person, 
as they might deem expedient." They finally, while openly 
professing their attachment to Charles II., perfidiously 
invited the Duke of Lorraine to Ireland, " engaging, upon 
his appearance with his forces, to deliver up the island to 
him and declare him sovereign. Primate Boyle produced 
the original instrument at the Privy Council." f According 
to Clarendon, total absence of principle in Charles governed 
his avowed policy — to prefer his enemies, to neglect his 
friends. He heartlessly relied on the principle of the latter 

* Leland's History of Ireland, vol. iii., pp. 461, 462. 
t Swift's Works, vol. viii., p. 448. 



54 



CHARLES II. 



to secure them to him. Surrounded by worthless men, 
and still more worthless women, he promised everything to 
everybody, and violated every promise to all. " Shaftes- 
bury," said Charles to his chancellor, " you are the 
greatest rogue in England ! " — " Of a subject, sire," re- 
plied the other, bowing respectfully, " I am !" In Charles 
were blended the worst qualities of man — base ingratitude, 
private faithlessness, public corruption, unblushing profli- 
gacy. The reign of Charles was the era of good laws, of 
bad government, refuting the maxim — "measures, not 
men."* Charles, during his misfortunes, had made 
repeated promises to the Pope and the great Catholic 
princes of protection to his subjects of that religion,f and 
the returned exiles claimed their ancient estates. " To 
the favour of the Crown few of the old or of the new 
occupants had any pretensions : the despoilers and the 
despoiled had for the most part been rebels alike." J 

The sturdy Cromwellians threatening an appeal to 
arms to defend their possessions — alarmed the indolent 
recklessness of Charles, who concealed his designs under 
the cloak of duplicity. A heart cold, false, and un- 
grateful, was decided in its course by the betrayal into 
his hands of the proffer of his crown. The blood of the 
father was atoned for by priestly perfidy in the eyes of the 
son ; and Charles preferred as subjects the adherents of 
the republican regicides — the descendants of the late 
usurpers, to the Catholic loyalists, the followers of the 
confederate prelacy. A commission did issue for the 
avowed object of restoring some of the innocent exiles, but 
those who had attached themselves to the nuncio and the 

* Introduction to Mr. Fox's History, 

f HaUam's Constitutional History, vol. ii., p. 463. 

X Macaulay's England, vol. i., p. 186. 



IRISH BRIGADE— MARLBOROUGH. 



55 



ecclesiastical party were expressly excluded from being 
declared innocent* Ten years of the reign of Charles 
were passed in establishing the ascendancy — extending 
the territorial acquirements of the Protestants, by the 
Acts of Explanation and Settlement. During seven years, 
the hopes and expectations of the Catholics who had been 
dispossessed were faithlessly encouraged to be perfidiously 
depressed. The English settlers having won their estates 
by the sword, " had," said Sir William Petty, 60 at least 
a gambler's title to them ;" and that title they maintained. 
The Catholics who were excluded by the Act of Settlement, 
in disgust transferred their allegiance to France. There 
they became the founders of that gallant corps, afterwards 
covered with renown on every battle-field in Europe, under 
the immortal name of the Irish Brigade — a band whose 
valour, devotion, heroism, chivalry abroad, when apart 
from the priests, who at home had hung like an evil spell 
upon them — extorted the admiration of every age. " Two 
Irish regiments at Cremona, in 1702," declared a distin- 
guished senator in the British Parliament, " did more 
injury to the high allies than all their forfeited estates 
were worth." f We read in the despatches of the great 
Duke of Marlborough — the Protestant Marlborough, the 
attached associate in the field — of the Catholic Prince Eu- 
gene — that he was anxious to receive with open arms the 
soldiers of the Brigade. In a letter from the Hague of the 
21st of April 1705, he tells Mr. Secretary Harley,— " I 
know not where the Irish regiments in the French pay may 
serve this campaign, but it is likely some of them may 
come upon the Moselle. I believe, in that case, it might 
not be difficult to influence good numbers to quit that 

* Carte's Ormond, Hallam, O'Driscoll. 
t Wilson's Historical Records. 



56 



CONTRAST. 



service." * In another letter of the 8th of June 1705, from 
the camp at D'Elf, he states "that deserters from the 
Irish regiments in the service of France arrived every 
day ;"•)* and in another despatch to Harley, from the camp 
at Rousselaer, of the 28th of June 1706, he observes, — 
" As occasions offer, I do give all the encouragement I can 
to the Irish to come off to us." J It may therefore be fairly 
inferred — that the self-exiled Catholics felt dissatisfied at 
finding themselves arrayed in the ranks of the enemies of 
their country. When the sacrifice of Count Dillon by 
the guillotine, § and the terrors of revolutionary France 
drove, subsequently, the remnant of the Brigade to enrol 
themselves again in the armies of England, there, at least, 
they sustained the traditionary name which the motto on 
their arms and colours conferred, "semper et ubiquejideles" . 
What privileges withheld — what rights denied — what 
pledges violated — what invasion of property or liberty 
are now complained of, to justify in the eyes of God 
or man the array of subjects of the British Crown in the 
armies of a hostile state? From the glories of Marl- 
borough, the Irish Catholics at home were excluded by 
proscriptive laws : — they shared those still greater of Wel- 
lington, their fellow countryman. Associate victors of 
every field of Spain, — they boast with their fellow subjects 
of the trefoil union, equal participation in the perils and 
the pride of Waterloo. In the profession of arms they 
attain the same rank, acquire the same rewards, aspire to 
the 'same honours. On the other various highways of life 
• — citizens of the same state, endowed with the same attri- 

* Letters and Despatches of John Duke of Marlborough, vol. 
ii., p. 9. 

f Ibid, p. 83. % Ibid, p. 647. 

§ Arthur General Count Dillon, guillotined at Paris 13th April 
1794. 



PLOTS. 



57 



butes, protected by the same laws, secured in the same 
political existence — they enjoy the same franchises, the 
same religious freedom. Are the Catholic laity prepared 
to fling these blessings to the winds — to devote themselves 
and their sons to the despotism of ultramontane in- 
tolerance, — to become the priest-ridden slaves of a pope- 
ridden priesthood ? 

1 678. On the first news of the popish plot — that offspring 
of alarm and credulity — reaching Dublin, Peter Talbot, 
then Catholic archbishop, was imprisoned. By a proclama- 
tion of the 1 6th of October, all Jesuits, and also all bishops 
and clergy who exercised jurisdiction under the Pope, were 
commanded to depart the kingdom before the 20th of No- 
vember, and on that day another proclamation forbad all 
Catholics to enter the castle of Dublin, and the markets in 
several towns.* The designs of the priests may be learned 
from a letter of Colman the Jesuit to Father La Chaise, the 
confessor of Louis : — " We have here," said he, " a mighty 
work upon our hands, no less than the conversion of three 
Kingdoms, and by that, perhaps, the utter subduing of a 
pestilent heresy, which has for a long time domineered 
over this northern world. There were never such hopes 
since the death of our Queen Mary as now in our days. 
God hath given us a prince who is become, I may say, by 
a miracle, zealous of being the author and instrument of 
so glorious a work." j Thus did the priests delude them- 
selves and their dupes, for this letter proves the existence 
of a plot, but not, perhaps, the plot of Oates. That plot 
— mysterious in its own times, still unrevealed in ours — 
was seized on in England as a pretext for resisting the 
tyrannic tendencies of the Stuarts : Charles it furnished 

* Warburton's and Whitelaw's History of Dublin, vol. i. ; p. 218. 
t State Triate, vol. vii. 



58 



ACCESSION OF JAMES II. 



with an excuse for treacherous severities in Ireland — 
against that religion which he himself embraced in a 
death-bed repentance. 

1685. The accession of James II., a cruel and gloomy 
bigot, alarmed the conscience of England ; apprehension 
of that event had led to the repeal, in 1677, of the statute 
respecting the burning of heretics. In Ireland that 
accession again raised the hopes of the exiled Catholics ; 
with the restoration of their creed they anticipated the 
restoration of their estates. It has been justly observed, 
that in the attachment of James to Catholicity there was 
but little religion. With him sterile bigotry was the 
motive, tyranny the aim. When too odious, even as 
Duke of York, to be endured in England, he was sent 
out of sight to Scotland. His administration there was 
marked by odious laws, by barbarous punishments, and 
by judgments to the iniquity of which even that age fur- 
nished no parallel. While he presided over the torture 
of state prisoners before the Scottish privy council, it was 
remarked, that he " seemed to take pleasure in the 
spectacle, which some of the worst men then living were 
unable to contemplate without pity and horror. He not 
only came to council when the torture was to be inflicted, 
but watched the agonies of the sufferers with that sort of 
interest and complacency with which men observe a 
curious experiment in science." * " He who had com- 
plained so loudly of the laws against Papists, declared 
himself unable to conceive how men could have the 
impudence to propose the repeal of the laws against the 
Puritans."f He whose favourite theme had been the 

* Macaulay's History, vol. i.> p. 271. 

t His own words reported by himself ; Clarke's Life of James 
II., vol. i., p. 656.— Orig. Mem. 



HIS CRUELTIES — HIS QUEEN. 



59 



injustice of requiring civil functionaries to take religious 
tests, established in Scotland, when he resided there as vice- 
roy, the most rigorous religious test that has ever been 
known in the empire. * He who had expressed just indigna- 
tion when the priests of his own faith were hanged and quar- 
tered, amused himself with hearing Covenanters shriek, 
and seeing them writhe while their knees were beaten flat 
in the boots.f In this mood he became King, and he 
immediately demanded and obtained from the obsequious 
Estates of Scotland, as the surest pledges of their 
loyalty, the most sanguinary law that has ever in our 
island been enacted against Protestant nonconformists." J 
" In England his authority, though great, was circum- 
scribed by ancient and noble laws. Here he could not 
hurry dissenters before military tribunals, or enjoy at 
council the luxury of seeing them swoon in the boots. 
Here he could not drown young girls for refusing to take 
the abjuration, or shoot poor countrymen for doubting 
whether he was one of the elect." § Such was the 
monster who, after he had been hurled from the throne, 
became the idol of the Irish priests, — and who, if the 
country had not been rescued from him and them, would 
probably have gratified their sympathies, so congenial 
with his own, by the introduction and establishment of 
the inquisition in Ireland. 

To the spiritual advisers of his queen, the beautiful 
but ill-fated Mary Beatrice of Modena — who, by their 
intrigues and indiscretions, aggravated his own misdeeds, 

* Act of Parliament, carried in August 31, 1681. 

t Burnett, vol. i., p. 583. — Wodron III.. vol. ii. Unfortunately 
the acts of the Scottish Privy Council, during almost the whole 
administration of the Duke of York. 

X Macaulay's History, vol. i., p. 494. § Ibid, p. 499. 



60 



HIS ABDICATION PETRE, HIS CONFESSOR. 



and revived the traditional execration of his race — maybe 
traced the acceleration of the fall of James in England. 
His understanding was greatly inferior to that of his pre- 
decessor; but whatever may have been the crimes and 
follies of James, it has been truly remarked, he was 
punished for the sins of his brother as well as for his own. 
On his flight, a free Parliament recorded this memor- 
able declaration : — " James II., King of England, by 
violating, by the- advice of Jesuits and other wicked 
persons, the fundamental laws, has abdicated the govern- 
ment." Edward Petre, a Jesuit and his confessor, had 
been admitted a member of his privy council. The Pope 
had refused the entreaty of James to make Petre a bishop, 
alleging that such a nomination would be contrary to the 
rules of the Jesuits, to which order he belonged. James 
had himself the design of conferring on him the arch- 
bishopric of York,* if Rome could be got to recognize the 
Anglican nomination by the hands of Sancroft; but it 
seems that Petre, in his humility, aspired, like Wolsey, to 
be Lord Chancellor.-)- With priests the King had what 
he called his " closetings," illuminated only by spiritual 
light derived from the dimmed and distant planet of the 
Vatican. 

In order to exhibit his attachment to the principles of 
civil liberty, those whose lives had been spared at the 
bloody assizes after the rebellion of Monmouth, were sold 
by James and his courtiers as slaves in the West Indies ; 
— to illustrate his estimate of the sentiments of religious 
freedom expressed in his declaration of indulgence, the 
Duke of Somerset was dismissed from the household by the 
King, for respectfully refusing to join in the procession, 

* Hallanfs Constitutional History, vol. ii , p. 241. 
t Mazure, vol. ii., p. 290, quoted by Hallam. 



EDICT OF XAXTES— CASTLEMAIXE — IXXOCEXT XI. 61 



when the pope's Nuncio made his public entry into Windsor 
— an act, as the law then stood, of high treason.* While 
James proclaimed at home his attachment to religious 
toleration, he obeyed the priests by sending an ambassador 
to France, to express to Louis his high admiration of the 
persecution of the Protestants, which resulted from the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes ! f That edict had for 
eighty-seven years protected the Huguenots ; that re- 
vocation drove 50,000 men into exile, to swell the enemies 
of Catholicity and of James in the British isles. I 

The mission of the profligate Castlemaine to Rome 
had given grave offence in England. An English 
cardinal of the house of Howard was then resident at 
Rome. Whatever the predilections of the churchman 
for papal ascendancy may have been, they yielded to that 
attachment to his country which has ever ennobled " all 
the blood of all the Howards." Pope Innocent XL, who 
then filled the chair, was too deep a politician to admire 
the childish measures of James, and learning from the 
cardinal the true state of feeling in England, he but 
coldly received the King's ambassador. He felt that 
James was striking too openly at those laws and opinions, 
which he would more securely have undermined in 
silence and secrecy. The cardinals even sneeringly 
declared, that James merited excommunication for thus 
endeavouring to overturn the small remains of popery 
that still subsisted in England ;§ and it was said, that the 
Pope was not displeased at the prospect of his dethrone- 
ment. The conduct and feelings of Rome towards James 

* Cooke's History of Party, vol. i., p. 439. 
t Millar's Historical View, vol. iii., p. 426. .* 
X Laing's History, vol. ii., p. 159. s-' 
§ Lord Lyttleton's History of England, - 1. ii. 



62 BASENESS OF JAMES — COMMITTAL OF CASTLEMAINE. 

in his early disasters supply in history a strange political 
paradox. Innocent had been previously led to hope that 
the Prince of Orange would assume the command of the 
allied armies on the Rhine, and defend the rights of the 
empire and the Church against the aggrandizing ambition 
of Louis the Great of France ; and to this design he had 
promised to contribute considerable subsidies. James had 
even debased himself by the meanness of his submission 
to France. Barillon, the French ambassador, in writing 
to his master, repeats expressions which the English King 
had used to him. " I had," said he, "been brought up 
in France : I had eaten his majesty's bread, and my heart 
is French." * Whether the cause was contempt for James, 
or apprehension of Louis, it is undeniable, according to 
Ranke, that the Pope attached himself to an opposition 
that was in a great measure based on Protestant resources 
and motives, t 

Castlemaine on his return was impeached, in 1689 ; yet 
his defence, if sincere, seems to have had some reason in 
it : " The Pope," said he, " is a very considerable temporal 
prince, whose territories border on two seas, the Mediter- 
ranean and the Adriatic. If, then, our merchants should 
be by storm or other necessities driven into his ports, if 
Englishmen should be surprised by any Roman party as 
they travel in a neighbouring country, shall our govern- 
ment, (not to mention a hundred greater accidents,) want 
power to send a messenger to ransom or compound for 
them."J Castlemaine was committed to the Tower for 
high treason, "for endeavouring to reconcile this kingdom 
to Rome, and for other high crimes and misdemeanors f 

F-^lrymple's Appendix, p. 147. 
t %e's History of the Popes, vol. ii., p. 279. 
X Stat^Tria s , vol. xii., p. 609. 



DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH ROME. 



63 



and up to this hour a British minister has been unable 
to establish diplomatic relations with the Court of 
Rome. 

The wit of Sydney Smith thus ridicules the terrors of 
the bugbear — the Pope — in our days. " The sooner," 
said he, " we become acquainted with a gentleman, who 
has so much to say to eight millions of our subjects — the 
better. I have no love of Ropery ; but the pope is at all 
events better than the idol of Juggernaut, whose chaplains 
1 believe we pay, and whose chariot I dare say is made in 
Long Acre. We pay 10,000/. a-year to our ambassador 
at Constantinople, and are startled with the idea of com- 
municating diplomatically with Rome, deeming the Sultan 
a better Christian than the Pope !"* 

James was the tool of a weak woman and a vicious 
priest. To them may be traced the tragic events which 
followed. Even comedy took its tone from the scenes 
around her ; and a plot — the incarnation of mischief, was 
in those days, incomplete on any stage without a priest 
and a woman. According to Miss Strickland, one of the 
objects of the mission to Rome was to solicit a cardinal's 
hat for Rinaldo D'Este, the Queen's uncle. This he 
afterwards resigned on his marriage.f James received 
the nuncio of the Pope in full solemnity, surrounded by 
the clergy, at St. James's. Even St. Paul's had been 
altered by the orders of James at the instance of the 
priests ; — against the remonstrances of Wren, side oratories 
were added to fit it for Catholic service.J " When at 
length the Spanish ambassador, Don Ronquillo, remon- 

* Fragment on the Roman Catholic Church. Works of the 
Rev. Sydney Smith. Longman and Co., Lond. 1850, p. 684. 
f Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens, vol. ix., p. 347. 
X Spence's Anecdotes, p. 298. 



64 . INFATUATION OF JAMES — TYRCONNELL, 

strated with the King on the impolitic lengths to which 
priestly zeal was urging him, James, incensed at his 
boldness, inquired, 4 Is it not the custom in Spain for the 
King to consult his confessor V 4 Yes, Sire/ answered 
the proud but prudent Castilian, 4 and that is the reason 
our affairs succeed so ill !' " * 

1686. Tyrconnell, who had acquired an enviable 
notoriety under the name of 44 Lying Dick Talbot," was 
first appointed lieutenant-general under Clarendon ; he 
subsequently became lord-deputy in Ireland. With the 
power of the state in his hands, the clergy fancied the 
country their own. While the indignation of England 
was roused to frenzy at the barbarities of the brutal 
soldiery of Kirk, shocked at the wholesale murders of 
Jeffries, horrified at the obdurate revenge of James to his 
wretched nephew Monmouth, — 44 to see him and not to 
spare him was an outrage on humanity and decency;" f — 
the hope of the exaltation of their church made James 
an object of adulation with the infatuated Irish. While 
the broadswords of Scotland had successfully achieved 
religious freedom, by rescuing that country from episco- 
pacy, subserviency to priestly influence was busily en- 
gaged in preparing manacles for the mind in Ireland. 
Such was the delight of the Catholic party in Dublin on 
hearing of the birth of the first pretender, that the lord 
mayor committed the bell-ringers of Christ Church 
cathedral to durance, because the bells did not ring 
merrily enough on an occasion so joyous to the nation. J 
44 Though James had abandoned the Irish, the Irish had not 
abandoned James. Against his undisturbed predecessors 

* Jesse's Memoirs of the Stuarts, vol. iv., p. 420. 
t Macaulay. 

X Leland, vol. iii,, pp. 461, 462. 



INTEMPERANCE OF PRIESTHOOD. 



65 



they had maintained desultory but implacable war ; to 
him, expelled and outlawed, they exhibited, as were their 
character and their custom, a perverse loyalty, like their 
perverse rebellion, blind to its object. ,, * A fugitive 
from the kingdom of his inheritance, a mendicant in that 
of his asylum, James strove to hide his disgrace in the 
seclusion of St. Germain. Tyrconnell sent Rice, then 
chief baron, to France, to solicit his presence in Ireland. 
The abject James threw himself on the fidelity of the 
Irish, to become to the country of his sojourn — a calamity 
and a curse. 

The Catholic clergy, shuffling off the coil of humility, 
again aspired to exaltation, and were received in full 
canonicals by James, in state at the castle of Dublin ; 
their address read by the right reverend predecessor of 
Paul Cullen. While applauding the royal zeal for the 
promotion of Catholic faith, it reduced the means of 
accomplishing that end— to the immediate restoration of 
all the property of the Church to the ancient esta- 
blishment, f The clergy entertained their imaginations 
with the gorgeous magnificence of a triumphant Church, 
a splendid hierarchy, a subjugated people, a Catholic 
King, and papal supremacy. Their doctrine harmonized 
with their ambition, that the State belonged to the 
Church ; that the ministers of religion were the fittest 
ministers of the Crown. After James had been some 
months in Ireland, Danby, the former but fallen minister, 
was heard to declare, " If King James would only quit 
his priests he might still retrieve his affairs." £ 

* Sketch, of the Past and Present State of Ireland, by the 
Rt. Hon. J. W. Croker. 
t O'Driscoll's Ireland. 

% Knight's Pictorical History of England, Book ix., p. 18. 

F 



66 



BASE MONEY OF JAMES. 



The priests soon, however, became too turbulent, too 
intemperate, too audacious, even for James. They and 
their votaries disdained obedience to any orders con- 
flicting with the ascendancy of the faith. A contest now 
arose between the priests and the King, and in that 
contest James was mortified at finding himself foiled and 
defeated. The priests had seized and retained the 
churches— with a contemptuous disregard of the repeated 
orders of the King. His authority in every matter 
savouring of the Church, they totally renounced.* Under 
the discipline of such leaders, themselves under such 
subordination, the destiny of Ireland was no longer 
doubtful. The audacity which had displeased James had 
outraged Protestant feeling, and was remembered against 
the priesthood, when adversity again commended the bitter 
chalice back to their lips. Every act of insolent assump- 
tion was treasured to supply a fresh link for their fetters, 
when fate again placed their necks beneath the foot of 
power. When the priests urged Tyrconnell to a breach 
of the Act of Settlement, he was opposed by the Catholic 
members of the privy council. Lord Bellairs had declared, 
" Talbot was madman enough to ruin ten kingdoms !" 
Yet Talbot was the object of priestly admiration, the 
prudent adviser of James ! 

While the priests were thus acquiring the dominion of 
the country, James, in order to carry on the war, had 
coined all the pewter and brass he could collect in the 
kingdom —into money ; and we learn from "The Memoirs 
of Ireland," by the author of " The Secret History of 
Europe," that those who had charges on their estates, 
poured in the base money on their creditors. " They 
making some scruple of taking about 30s. for 1,000/., 
* Leland's History of Ireland, vol. iii., p. 545. 



CHANCELLOR FITTON— FREXCII AUXILIARIES. 67 



which was pretty near the difference at that time in value 
between the silver and brass coin, King James issued his 
proclamation, dated February 4th, 1689, to make that 
money current in all payments whatsoever, whether judg- 
ments, mortgages," &c " Fitton, the Catholic Lord 
Chancellor, compelled trustees for orphans and widows to 
receive their mortgages in this kind as well as others."* 

So blind, so infatuated were the lower Irish, that while 
the priests encouraged and preached exclusive dealing, 
even the use of the base money in the purchase of the 
necessaries of life was denied to their opponents. We 
are told by Archbishop King, " that Sir Robert Parker 
and some others blabbed out at a coffee-house, that they 
designed to starve one half of the Protestants and hansj 
the other half. We were sensible that they were in 
earnest by the event, for no Protestant could get a bit of 
bread to buy, and hardly a drink of water, in the city of 
Dublin ; twenty or thirty soldiers stood constantly before 
every bakehouse, and would not suffer a Protestant to 
come nigh them."t 

Ireland became the battle-field of armies contending 
for the crown of three kingdoms. To mark his respect 
for the military acquirements of the Irish army, on whose 
courage he relied to recover that crown, James appointed 
the ferocious Rosen, a German, his general. The Irish 
again solicited foreign aid ; and, as usual, dissensions fol- 
lowed the arrival of their alien allies. The French 
despised those who invited them as rude and unpolished ; 
they, in their turn, detested the French as presumptuous 
and arrogant. J The two nations had but one characteristic 

* Memoirs of Ireland, p. 180. 
t King's State, 4to., p. 139. 
X O'Driscoll's Ireland. 

F 2 



68 



WILLIAM. 



in common — gaiety ; but the gaiety of both was dissimilar 
and uncongenial to each. There still breathed some 
national spirit in the native soldiery ; they disdained to be 
dependents of France. James, on the recommendation of 
priests educated abroad, had insultingly superseded with 
foreigners the most devoted of the Irish officers. Some of 
them in disgust threw up their arms, and retired with their 
adherents. Such was the contempt of St. Ruth for James, 
such the ascendancy he assumed, such his confidence in 
priestly power over the Irish, that he required them to 
swear allegiance to his master, and his orders were issued 
in the name of Louis, and not of James.* This was, 
according to Hallam, preparatory to an attempt to place 
the crown of Ireland on the head of the French King ; f 
the mere revival of a favourite design of the priests. 

William had been in his infancy divested of his dignities 
by the Dutch through the hostility of Cromwell, who 
hated him for his connexion by blood with the race of 
Stuart. J That connexion, afterwards strengthened by one 
of marriage, raised him to the throne of James, who was 
both his uncle and his father-in-law. If he sacrificed 
domestic ties to personal ambition, the sacrifice was made 
at the shrine of public liberty. His ill success as a soldier 
may, perhaps, have led to his eminence as a statesman, 
and his reign illustrates the truth of the remark, " that he 
who hath the worst title always makes the best king/' 
In 1588, Elizabeth rescued England from the Spaniards 
and the priests. The revolution of 1688 — precisely a 
century after — redeemed England, regenerated the spirit 
of freedom, perhaps for the world. A distinguished Irish 

* Leland's Ireland, vol. iii., p. 599. 

t Hallam's Constitution History, vol. iii., p. 530. 

% Hume, vol. vii., p. 252. 



PENAL LAWS — HUGUENOTS. 



69 



Catholic authority has declared, " In matters of reli- 
gion William was liberal, enlightened, and philosophical, 
equally a friend to religious as to civil liberty."* 
William, whose name was yet unstained by the massacre 
of Glencoe, had, in Ireland, issued successive declarations 
of mercy, extending it to persons of every rank and 
station, whether natives or foreigners. These offers 
produced but little effect, " for the Irish were gene- 
rally governed by their priests." f Schomberg said in a 
letter to William, " The priests are passionate to exhort 
the people to die for the Church of Rome." The evil 
spirit, which had blasted the hopes of Ireland in the 
warriors of the nuncio, revived in the ranks of the soldiery 
of James. The same fatality attended the Irish arms at 
home — the battles of the Boyne and of Aughrim were 
miscarriages, in which, while the heroism of their de- 
votion atoned for the infatuation of their attachment, the 
Catholic soldiers lost everything but honour. 

If proscriptive laws had augmented the forces of France 
with the Catholics of Ireland, parallel penal enactments 
against the Huguenots, after the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes, drove the Protestants of France into the victo- 
rious army of William. The laws of Catholic France, 
the fertile inventions of priests, were infinitely more severe 
against the Protestants than the penal laws were against 
the Catholics. The sacred tie which united husband and 
wife was declared null. Children were torn by force from 
their Protestant parents and educated proselytes. Certi- 
ficates of marriage were burnt by the common executioner, 
in the presence of the married pair, and their offspring 
bastardized. The husband was sent to the galleys — the 
wife into seclusion — the property of both confiscated. 
* Matthew O'Connor. f Smollet's England. 



70 TfJEATY OF LIMERICK — -BILL OF EXCLUSION. 

Soldiers were sent on free quarters to the families of the 
Huguenots, hundreds were broken on the wheel, burned, 
and massacred in cold blood.* Oh ! religion ! what crimes 
have been committed in thy name ! 

With the treaty of Limerick, far more liberal in its terms 
than the priests would have conceded to their opponents, 
ended the war. Under its protection the gallant army that 
had defended the city retired to France, and left behind but 
a nation of dejected slaves.")* " The termination of the war 
was to the Catholics a sad servitude — to the Protestants a 
drunken triumph — to both, a peace without trade and with- 
out a constitution." j With the Catholic proprietors defeat 
was again succeeded by banishment, conquest by confisca- 
tion. With the priesthood dejection became again the 
advent of pious humility. With a\\ it was a subject of 
national lamentation, that the bill proposed in England by 
William Lord Russell, " To disable James Duke of York 
from succeeding to the throne," had not become law.§ 
That law, had it passed, might have spared the blood of 
Russell ; Ireland it would have saved from James, from 
the priests, from attendant woes interminable. 

" W T hile James and his power lingered in Ireland, he 
assembled a pseudo Parliament. He had chosen the 
members, he chose the measures — an act of attainder pro- 
scribing thousands by name, thousands more by inference. 
From the Catholic, lately tyrannical, now subdued, the 
Protestant thought it justifiable to subtract all power. 
Obsolete penalties were revived, new restraints enacted, — 
exclusion of their ambition from the senate, of their par- 

* Chenevix, on National Character, vol. i., p. 524. 
f O'Driscoll's Ireland. 
X Grattan. 

§ The Bill of Exclusion passed the Commons of England twice — 
the last time on the 21st of May 1679, by a majority of 207 to 128. 



C AL AMITIES — PRIESTLY PRESUMPTION. 



71 



tiality from the magistracy, of their force from the field. 
That influence often misused should not be regained, pos- 
sessions were forfeited, acquisitions forbidden. That dis- 
affection should be impotent, weapons of offence were 
stricken from their hands, and the means of resistance 
removed, as its causes were multiplied. The Catholic 
when able proscribed the Protestant, the victorious Pro- 
testant copied the Catholic statute against its enactors.' , * 
Thus have the cumulative calamities with which the 
priests, through the instrumentality of James, overwhelmed 
the Catholics of Ireland, been condensed by a master and 
a living hand. The bigotry of James exciting just appre- 
hension for national liberty, the excesses of the priests 
creating strong counteraction, tended ultimately to settle 
the institutions of the empire. 

The priests continued to the end of the war mis- 
chievously busy. A scene of presumptuous folly occurring 
in the strong garrison of Charlemont on its capitulation, 
afforded table-talk to both camps. A reverend father 
forced a theological discussion on a British dragoon, whom 
he was so bold as to strike for his irreverence. The 
soldier, not to be behindhand with the pious man in any 
sort of argumentation, rejoined vigorously. When the 
clerical disputant, who had been sadly worsted in the 
latter contest, complained of his martyrdom to O' Regan 
the governor, described by Leland " as a brave Irish 
officer," the comfort he received was, " I am glad of it ; 
what had a priest to do to dispute religion with a trooper !"-f* 
An occasional repetition of such military discipline on 
clerical presumption in the present day, would, it is 
opined, tend to the promotion of religion as well as order. 

* Past and Present State of Ireland, 
t O'DriscoH's Ireland. 



72 



MARY BEATRICE — CHEVALIER ST. GEORGE. 



Adversity teaches prudence sometimes even to Queens — 
rarely to priests. In conversation with the nuns at Chaillot, 
Mary Beatrice observed she never liked Petre ; his violent 
counsel did the King much harm, and she believed he 
was a bad man.* When Lord Stair was afterwards ambas- 
sador at Paris, she bitterly lamented to him the folly of 
her husband, and laid all the blame on Father Petre. f 
Yet James solicited a cardinal's hat for Petre. Her 
declaration respecting her son, the Chevalier St. George, 
afterwards the first pretender, ,;s thus recorded in the 
diary at Chaillot. " Should my son return, you will not 
see any alteration in the Established Church. The utmost 
he can do is to shield the Catholics from persecution. He 
is too prudent to attempt innovations." J What shield do 
the Catholics now require from persecution ? What inno- 
vations do not the priests now attempt ? Even James 
himself seems to have had his misgivings of them. His 
testamentary instructions to that son contain the following 
advice : — " 'Tis not safe to let any of the natives of 
Ireland be governors of the garrisons ; nor to have any 
troops in them but English, Scotch, or strangers ; nor to 
tempt the natives to rebel, they being of a very uncertain 
temper, and easily led by their chiefs and clergy, and will 
always be ready to rise in arms against the English, and 
endeavour to bring in strangers to support them."§ That 
son appears, however, to have inherited the folly of his 
father. A contemporary, who met him in Scotland in 
1715, speaks of him thus : "He has all the superstition 
of a capuchin, but I found no tincture of true religion. 

* Miss Strickland's Life, p. 420. 

t Jesse's Memoirs of the Stuarts, vol. iv. 

% Miss Strickland's Life of Mary. 

§ Appendix to Clarke's Memoirs of James II. 



VICISSITUDES OF RICE, CHIEF-BARON. 73 

I conversed with very few amongst the Roman Catholics 
themselves, who did not think him too much of a papist."* 
Deprived of the presence, the countenance of that autho- 
rity which " doth hedge a King ;" reckless, probably 
ignorant of the awful examples of the past ; deficient in 
the faculty of self-control, the priests of the present day 
are blindly and madly treading in the footsteps of their 
Jacobite predecessors. The priestly devotees, whatever 
phases their folly may assume — be it repealer, rebel, reli- 
gionist — must recognize in themselves — the lineal de- 
scendants of the deluded adherents of James ! 

As had been ever the fate of Ireland, confiscations of 
properties, banishment of families, were the certain camp 
followers of war. The annals of that period, amongst 
many instances of reverse of fortune, present one affecting 
and instructive. Rice, chief-baron, the most eminent 
man of the Catholic bench, followed James in his flight 
back from Ireland to St. Germain. The property of Rice 
had been wasted in the wars, but he soon sickened of 
dependency in a foreign land, and returned to become an 
humble practitioner in the Court over which he had once 
presided. With abilities acknowledged, legal acquire- 
ments admitted, integrity known to all, he soon, in a stuff 
gown behind the bar, amassed a second independence — to 
replace that fortune which he had lost in the ravages of 
civil war.-f* The example is ominous ; may we hope that 
the intemperance of wicked men may not multiply similar 
instances, that vain and vicious ambition may not lead to 
the repetition of such vicissitudes ! 

Here commences the era of Protestant supremacy — of 
Catholic subjugation. So completely extinct was the poli- 
tical existence of the Catholics — that no member of either 
* Earl of Mar. t O'Driscoll's Ireland. 



74 



DR. DOYLE — JUSTIFIES THE PENAL LAWS. 



House of Parliament, in the reign of Anne, stood up to 
oppose the laws against the growth of popery. A few, 
affecting to clear themselves, resigned, — like Pilate, they 
washed their hands before the people as proofs of their 
innocence.* The question whether the penal laws were 
justifiable in their original enactment, formed a subject of 
interesting inquiry in the evidence given by the celebrated 
Dr. Doyle, by far the ablest and most enlightened of the 
Catholic bishops, before a Committee of the House of 
Commons, in March, 1825 :f — 

" Question. 4 Was there anything in the conduct of the 
Roman Catholics, in your opinion, during the reigns of 
the Stuarts, that justified Parliament in passing the penal 
laws against them ?' " — " Answer. i Yes. I think at that 
time the connexion of the Roman Catholics with the Stuarts 
was such as justified, and even made it necessary for the 
English Government to pass some penal laws against the 
Catholics, such as excluding them from offices of trust, 
and perhaps even from the councils of the Sovereign V " 
" Question. ' Inasmuch as that conduct was hostile to the 
principles of the constitution of England and civil liberty, 
are you of opinion that they were in that degree justi- 
fiable ?' " — " Answer. 1 1 do think they were justifiable, 
nay, that it was their duty to pass restrictive laws against 
the Catholics, considering the political principles of the 
Catholics at that time ; at that time restrictions were 
exceedingly necessary, as the Popes at that time pretended 
to have in this country rights and privileges which are 
utterly abolished and never can be revived.' " " Question. 
6 Is the claim that some Popes have set up to tem- 

* Plowden's Ireland, vol. ii., p. 37. 

t Parliamentary Eeports, vol. viii., p. 190. 



ULTRAMONTANE PRIESTHOOD. 



75 



poral authority opposed to Scripture and tradition ?' " — 
" Answer. * In my opinion it is opposed to both !' " * 

The historical events previously grouped in the sketches 
of the reigns of the four Stuart kings, led to those 
emphatic, just, and deliberate conclusions in the candid 
and cultivated mind of Dr. Doyle. It had long been the 
fashion to attribute the inroads of the popedom and its 
priesthood in those days on the civil rights of men, to the 
spirit of the age, and not to the spirit of the Church. 
The ambitious intolerance of that Church, however pre- 
judicial it might then have proved to the immediate 
interests of the country, contributed unintentionally to 
promote the general well-being of the empire, by favouring 
the adjustment of the constitution. The papal see is 
again striving to blend itself and its influences with the 
laws, manners, institutions, frame and policy of states. If, 
in the extraordinary mutations of improvement in which 
society is revolving, the Catholics are alone not carried 
with them, the same lamentable causes must produce the 
same deplorable consequences. England had been his- 
torically taught to believe that her political ascendancy 
commenced with the overthrow of papal supremacy. She 
" has learned," said Burke, " to snuff the approach of 
tyranny in every tainted breeze." The principles of an 
ultramontane priesthood constitute the most terrific of all 
tyrannies. Their very essence is contempt for man. The 
derivation of its name — beyond the mountains — which sepa- 
rate enterprizing and warlike France from crushed and 
abject Italy, implies that its doctrines were unsuited to, 
and could not, at least, hitherto — exist in the intellectual 
fertility of the Gallican soil. The development of our 
race illustrates that principles early sown are the seeds 
* Parliamentary Keports, vol. viii., p. 190. 



76 



THEIR DANGEROUS PRINCIPLES. 



which produce fruit in manhood. Ultra-montanism con- 
demns classic literature to substitute monkish barbarism, 
proscribes the light of science to regenerate mediaeval 
darkness, anathematizes reason to stifle inquiry, identifies 
religion with absolutism, and, by impeding advance, strives 
to brutalize man. In seeking to substitute for the exalted 
worship of the divinity the adoration of the Virgin, it 
labours to restore the prophanations of heathenism, and 
in deifying the Pope, it unchristianizes the people. The 
endurance of obstructive intolerance for any time in a 
country of progress, will inevitably create a chasm between 
the past and the future conditions of society. Should the 
Catholics of the present day, at the dictation of a priest- 
hood retrograding into the exploded absurdities of ultra- 
montane extravagance, re-assert the same doctrines, as 
aggressive and as dangerous as ever to civil liberty, which 
formerly led to its restriction — doctrines they disavowed, 
disclaimed, discarded and denounced for a century and 
a half — the same necessity for restrictive laws must again 
arise. What might have been withheld may be re-assumed, 
and the Catholics are the arbiters of their own fate. 
Should they create the alternative, whether England shall 
peril the treasure she prizes most, that liberty purchased 
with the blood of her best and bravest sons ; or recal the 
privileges which the Catholics laboured so long and so 
earnestly to acquire, and the luxury of which they may 
prove themselves unworthy to enjoy, the members of that 
creed may rest assured — that the decision will be prompt, 
in its adoption inflexible, effective in its enforcement. 



PENAL CODE. 



77 



CHAPTER IV. 

The penal code, whatever may have been the causes 
that produced it, was devised to extinguish an ancient 
gentry, to dislocate all the relations of social life, to 
poison the fountains of domestic peace, to beggar and 
barbarize the people. Designed on principles purely poli- 
tical, dictated by the recollection of what the vanquished 
had done themselves, and would, if victors, do again. 
Framed with a double design to fetter a powerful foe, to 
persecute that foe into a subservient friend. That code 
denuded the Catholics of their estates, prohibited them 
from inheritance, shut up their schools, stript them of the 
elective franchise, closed to them the Parliament and the 
bar, denied them municipal or military honours, barred 
against them the avenues to office on the bench or in the 
state. Power, place, patronage, were forbidden to the ma- 
jority ; — confined to the few, — Protestant was another name 
for the possessor, Catholic for the excluded, — the property 
of the father was often, by form of law, iniquitously legal, 
surrendered to the perjured apostacy of the son, — the 
houseless priest depended for shelter on the merciful pro- 
tection of his Protestant neighbour. Bishop Boulter 
during the ascendancy, — avowed that the best system to 
govern Ireland was to set the people at variance on reli- 
gion, that the Government might be strong and the people 
weak. The loyalty of the Catholic in those days had been 



78 CATHOLICS — REFORMATION — QUEEN ANNE. 



compared to that of the chained tiger to his keeper. 
Human nature forbad it to have been otherwise, when a 
Lord Chancellor of Ireland — Bowes — declared — that the 
Catholics were only known in the eye of the law for 
the purposes of punishment. Yet in those days Ireland 
had a boasted legislative independence ! How different 
are the Catholics now, enjoying all the benefits and 
blessings which flow from her independent, equalized, rich 
and luxurious connexion with England ! 

In 1702, exertions were again made to spread the prin- 
ciples of the Reformation amongst the Irish, by preaching 
to them in their native language. The Catholic clergy, 
of course, opposed its progress : one priest, in order to 
draw off his congregation from their new devotion, ex- 
claimed, that these prayers had been all stolen from the 
Church of Rome. " If so," remarked a grave old man, 
who was listening attentively, " they have stolen the best, 
as thieves generally do !"* While the preaching failed in 
its object, legislation proceeded with peculiar harshness in 
the time of Anne. The reign of that daughter of James 
intervened between the third William and the first 
George — to concentrate the severities of the penal code 
in Ireland, — to effectuate, in 1707, the union of Scotland 
with England. William, who had married Mary, the 
eldest daughter of James, was the son of his sister. — The 
Elector of Hanover, afterwards George I., had come to 
England to solicit the hand of Anne ; but his father } 
probably from apprehensions of the fate of James, pre- 
ferred his marriage with the Princess of ZelLf If that 
union with Anne had been solemnized, James would have 
had two royal and Protestant sons-in-law succeeding to 

* British Critic, January, 1828. 

t Tindal's Continuation of Eapin, p. 356. 



FURTHER INTRIGUE OF FRANCE. 



79 



his throne ; the succession might, perhaps, have been un- 
broken in the line of the Stuarts, — a race, happily for 
England, now extinct. 

Even after the death of James, France still regarded 
Ireland as a favourable soil on which to scatter the seeds 
of civil discord, by means of religious instruments. In 
170S, Ambrose O'Connor, provincial of the Irish Domi- 
nicans, was sent by the French King in one of his frigates 
from Brest to sound the Irish. In his communications he 
informed the Court of France, " There are not 6000 
regular troops in Ireland. I insinuated to the principal 
families that they ought to send to the King a trusty 
person to assure his Majesty of their heartiness ; but they 
durst not venture a deputation in so dangerous a junc- 
ture. Even their own shadow affrights them /" Prudence 
thus rendered the mission of the priest abortive. If the 
spirit of mischief had again prevailed, it would probably 
have led to the utter extermination of the Catholics by 
the sword, or their complete expulsion from the country, 
like that of the Moriscos from Spain. 

The priesthood, perhaps from an abhorrent remem- 
brance by those in power, of their former misdeeds, — 
perhaps from a hope of averting further misfortunes to 
the country— by their self-expatriation, became objects of 
peculiar legislative vengeance. At them were aimed the 
multiplied tyrannies of successive Parliaments. Grievous, 
indeed unendurable, must the provocation have been — 
goaded by the " treasons and stratagems " of a perverse 
clergy, must a Christian legislature have been ; — which, 
adopting the examples of the Arian Theodric, who de- 
clared it a crime to suffer a believer in the divinity of 
Christ to exist in the state,— of the apostate Julian in his 
attempt to win the Christians from Christianity, — pre- 



80 SEVERITIES AGAINST PRIESTS — FIRST PRETENDER. 

eluded the Catholic priest from education at home, forced 
him to seek it abroad from the charity of an hostile state, 
and set a price upon his head on his return to impart it in 
his native land. 

A Bill was actually presented in 1723, by the Irish 
Commons to the lord-lieutenant, authorising inflictions 
on the members of that body at which our manhood 
shudders ; but the measure was repudiated with indigna- 
tion by the government. It is observed by Burke, " that 
penal laws forced the people, by the forfeiture of all 
their civil rights, to submit to priestly authority in its 
most unbounded and extravagant sense." Everything, 
according to Swift, is different in Ireland from what it is 
everywhere else, but even there it would be a strange 
converse, if the unbounded restoration of civil rights were 
to produce the same pernicious effects which arose from 
their forfeiture. 

Ireland had suffered so severely from her attachment 
to the fortunes of his father, that the attempt of the first 
pretender, in 1715, excited no movement. The Catholic 
laity first emerged from their obscurity in 1727, in an 
address to George II. on his accession, in which they 
declared, " We respect from the bottom of our hearts 
that legislation under which we suffer and they deem 
it an aggravation of their servitude that " it is suffered 
amidst that liberty, that peace, and that security, which 
under your Majesty's benign influence is spread on all 
around us." * This document presents two important 
aspects ; it may be almost deemed an admission of the 
justice of their doom, however oppressed ; it is, at all events, 
an acknowledgment that during their subjection, the 
country enjoyed a happy state of tranquillity and peace. 
* Curry's Civil Wars of Ireland. 



CELTIC RACE — SWIFT. 



81 



In 1727 a scarcity approaching to famine, drove the 
Protestant woollen-weavers of Ulster to emigrate in num- 
bers to America, where their descendants in arms after- 
wards defended the lines of Pennsylvania against the 
English. Scarcely an Irish Roman Catholic quitted his 
country, yet in that year that body were first directly de- 
prived of the elective franchise. Some races of men, it 
has been said, are born for subjection — political privileges 
ought to be attendant only on political fitness ; the Celts 
court and covet mastery — they seem to be only perfectly 
happy when partially oppressed. Such assuredly is the 
case with their priesthood— 6 6 Nec totam servitutem pati 
possunt, nec totam libertatem." * 

The early portion of the last century was in Ireland 
redeemed but by one great name. Swift has been thus 
graphically sketched : — " Ireland's true patriot — her first, 
almost her last. Sagacious and intrepid, he saw — he 
dared ; above suspicion, he was trusted ; above envy, he 
was beloved ; above rivalry, he was obeyed. His wisdom 
was practical and prophetic — remedial for the present, 
warning for the future. He saved his country by his 
courage, improved her by his authority, adorned her by 
his talents, and exalted her by his fame/' f Swift, in 1732, 
thus expressed his estimate of the Catholics of that day : 
— " It is a gross imposition on common sense to try to 
terrify us with the strength of the papists in Ireland ; for 
popery, although it be offensive and inconvenient enough 
from the consequences it has to increase the rapine, sloth, 
and ignorance as well as poverty of the natives, is not 
properly dangerous in that sense, because it is universally 
hated by every party of a different religious profession. 

* Tacitus. 

t Sketch of the Past and Present State of Ireland. 

G 



82 HIS ESTIMATE OF THE CATHOLICS — FONTENOY. 



It is the contempt of the wise, the best topic for clamours 
of designing men, but the real terror only of fools. The 
papists are wholly disarmed — they have neither courage, 
money, nor inclination to rebel."* Swift saw the Catho- 
lics dejected, their priesthood proscribed — both subdued, 
their religion barely endured. He saw them, in ceasing 
to be the slaves of foreign states which had deceived and 
deserted them, become the sycophants of the power that 
conquered and oppressed them. He pitied while he 
despised, he admonished while he rebuked, he instructed 
while he reproached them. 

The battle of Fontenoy in 1745, t the only victory which 
the galleries of Versailles — dedicated " To all the glories 
of France" — exhibit over Britain, encouraged in the same 

* Swift's Works, by Sir Walter Scott, vol. viii., p. 427. 

f It is strange that the only two generals in the service of 
France who could boast of successes over the English, were neither 
of them really French — the Duke of Berwick and Marshal Saxe. 
James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick, was the son of J ames II. by 
Arabella Churchill, the sister of the Duke of Marlborough, and 
according to his own account, was born on the 21st of August, 
1670, in the Bourbonnois. He took the field early, in Flanders, 
against his illustrious uncle. At the battle of Almanza, in Spain, 
in 1707, he defeated the combined forces of England and Portugal. 
He married Honora de Burgh, daughter of William Earl of Clan- 
ricarde, widow of Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan. The duke 
fell in the trenches at the siege of Philiptown, on the 12th of June, 
1734, at the age of 63 ; his head was carried off by a cannon-ball, 
which Count Daun directed should be fired when the cannonier 
was sure of his aim. Daun, either an Irishman by birth, or the 
son of one, is said to have deeply lamented the fall of the duke, 
the result of singular and fatal precision. The English dukedom 
of Berwick had been forfeited in 1696. Marshal Saxe was by birth 
a German, and having served successfully against the armies of 
France, he was induced to enter that service to retrieve their 
fortunes. Although Saxe commanded at Fontenoy, the victory 
has been very generally attributed to the Irish regiments in the 
French line. 



CHARLES EDWARD — BISHOP BERKELEY. 



83 



year' the fatal enterprise of Charles Edward, another of 
the Stuart race, the second Pretender ; and at that period 
Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, to whom Pope attributes 
" every virtue under heaven," addressed the Catholics. 
After referring to the protection they then enjoyed, he 
observes, " that it would be highly imprudent as well as 
ungrateful to forfeit these advantages by making your- 
selves tools to the ambition of foreign princes, who fancy 
it expedient to raise disturbances amongst us, but as soon 
as their own ends are served will not fail to abandon you, 
as they have always done. Under Protestant govern- 
ments, those of your communion formerly enjoyed a 
greater share of the lands of this kingdom, and more 
ample privileges. You bore your part in the magistracy 
and the legislature, and could complain of no hardships 
on the score of your religion. If these advantages have 
been since impaired or lost, was it not by the wrong 
measures yourselves took to enlarge them, in several 
successive attempts, each of which left you weaker and in 
worse condition than you were before ? And this — notwith- 
standing the vaunted succours of France and Spain, 
whose vain efforts, in conjunction with yours, constantly 
recoiled on your own heads. Dear-bought experience 
hath taught you, and past times instruct the present." * 
This temperate and impressive reasoning, stamped with 
sincerity and truth, produced its effects. The Catholics 
in subjection had grown harmless, even in the eyes of their 
enemies ; not a single Catholic, lay or clerical, from 
Ireland, joined the standard of revolt. In acknowledg- 
ment of the loyalty of the priesthood, Lord Chesterfield, 
then Lord-Lieutenant, opened the chapels to the public, 
and protected the clergy. 

* Berkeley's Works, vol. ii., p. 233. — London, 1843. 

G 2 

* 



84 VICE ROYALTY OF CHESTERFIELD— CLERGY. 



The Viceroyalty of Chesterfield did not exceed in 
duration eight months ; it commenced — it terminated with 
the rebellion in Scotland. He who had been styled " a 
wit among lords, and a lord among wits," * found the 
country tranquil, and by prudence kept it so. He 
courted the ascendant, he encouraged the timid, he 
conciliated the depressed, and he won all. An alarmist, 
a class then common about the Court in Ireland, rushed 
one morning during the troubles in Scotland into his bed- 
chamber, exclaiming, " My lord ! my lord ! all Ireland 
is rising!" "What hour is it?" was the only inquiry. 
" Nine," replied the terrified courtier. " Then," calmly 
remarked the witty peer, "it is time for me to be rising 
also !" 

It has been one of the characteristics of the Christian 
Church from its foundation, that unlike all the religions 
of antiquity and the East, there has never been any caste 
amongst its clergy, — it receives into its arms, and enrols 
amongst its ministers, the sons of every class. Every 
man, the most humble in birth or fortune, who becomes a 
member of its faith, may be a minister of its creed. Sir 
William Petty, in his " Survey of Ireland," states that 
in his day, the priests were " chosen for the most part out 
of the old Irish gentry, and thereby influenced the people 
as well by their interest as their office." Mr. Theobald 
M'Kenna, a respectable Catholic authority, assures us, 
" That in the seventeenth century, every Catholic family 
of note held it a duty to assign some children to the ser- 
vice of religion ; but this reverence," he adds, " has very 
much decreased. With the age of money, new notions 
had been introduced, more conformable to the spirit of a 
money-making people." The daughters, however, of 
* By Dr. Johnson. 



BISHOP BERKELEY TO CATHOLIC CLERGY. 85 



aristocratic birth still continue in many instances to be 
dedicated to a religious life. " Poverty," declared the 
eminent Dr. Doyle, " is the cradle in which Christianity 
was nursed, and riches have ever been its bane." The 
vow of poverty was imposed in the early ages of the 
Church upon some ecclesiastical orders ; the vow of celi- 
bacy upon all. These ordinations were conceived wise 
and salutary, that the temporal should not interfere with 
the eternal interests of the priesthood ; that the piety of 
the Christian pastor might be devoted exclusively to the 
propagation of that faith, whose author and whose 
apostles were exalted by their humility ! 

The Catholic priesthood of the early part of the last 
century, felt that they had been^themselves the architects 
of Protestant ascendancy ; that they had created the 
tenure of coercion, by which alone the country could be 
held, secure against intestine disturbance and external 
intrigue. With that priesthood, their piety increased 
with their poverty ; seclusion from the public eye ren- 
dered their devotion to their Maker and their flocks the 
more sincere : religion became the more pure — the more 
its ministers were oppressed. How true had been the 
lament of the venerable but ill-fated Archbishop Oliver 
Plunket : " When we had wooden chalices, we had 
golden priests : when we got golden chalices, we found 
wooden priests !" 

In 1749, Bishop Berkeley published an address to the 
Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland ;* a document long 
forgotten, the revival of which, after more than a century, 
must lead to serious and sad reflections. " The house of 
the Irish peasant," he observed, " is the cave of poverty. 
Within, you see a pot and a little straw ; without, a heap 
* " A word to the Wise." —Berkeley's Works. 



86 



THEIR ADDRESS TO BISHOP BERKELEY. 



of children tumbling on the dunghill. In every road, the 
ragged emblems of poverty are displayed. You meet 
caravans of poor ; whole families without clothes to cover 
them, or bread to feed them. The negroes in our plan- 
tations have a saying, ' If negro was not negro, Irishman 
would be negro.' We take our notions from what we see : 
mine are a faithful transcript from originals about me." 
* * "If you have any compassion for your people, 
remind them how many perished in a late memorable 
distress, through want of prudent care against a hard 
season, observable not only in all other men, but even in 
irrational animals." * * " What a reproach it is, that a 
nation that makes so great pretensions to antiquity, and 
is said to have nourished many years ago in arts and 
learning, should in these, our days, turn out a lazy, desti- 
tute, and degenerate race." * * " The poverty, naked- 
ness, and famine, which idleness entaileth, do make men so 
wretched, that they may well think it better to die than 
to live such lives. Hence a courage for all villanous 
undertakings, which bringeth men to shameful death !" 
In the Dublin papers of the 18th of November 1749, 
appeared a resolution of the Roman Catholic clergy, 
"returning their sincere thanks to the worthy author, 
assuring him that they are determined to comply with 
every particular recommended in his address, to the 
utmost of their power." They add that, " in every page 
it contains a proof of the author's extensive charity ; his 
views are only towards the public good ; the means he 
prescribeth are easily complied with, and his manner of 
treating persons in their circumstances so very singular, 
that they plainly show the good man, the polite gentle- 
man, and the true patriot." Such was the language be- 
fitting Christian priests — such the demeanour of the 



REFLECTIONS. 



87 



Roman Catholic clergy of that day — towards a Protestant 
bishop ! If a bishop of the establishment were now to 
tender to that clergy — advice, combining the mildness of 
the Christian — the wisdom of the philosopher — the be- 
nevolence of the philanthropist — with what sneers would 
it be read ; with what contumely would it be rebuked ; 
with what insolence would it be repulsed ! The contrast 
is becoming daily more and more striking, between a 
clergy — gentlemen by birth, or at least by travel and 
cultivation — whom adversity had subdued into the 
decorous observances of civilized life, and a clergy whose 
origin is plebeian — whose education is ignorance — whose 
demeanour is arrogance — whose approach is tumult — 
whose persuasion is terror — whose liberty is licentious- 
ness. A clergy who, while they retain celibacy in their 
lives, must feel that in intelligence, literature, arts, 
science, civilization, the curse of sterility has fallen upon 
their church in Ireland. 

The humble priest of that day only existed by endur- 
ance — his poverty, his position, extenuated his inability to 
fulfil his pledge. What palliation exists for his proud, 
pampered, truculent successor of the present, affronting 
decency by his audacity? Abashed, however, he must 
be, if he has any shame, at this still faithful portraiture of 
the destitute, degraded, demoralized wretches around 
him. In the advance of general improvement, man, the 
object of his peculiar culture, alone remains unreclaimed. 
The same dwellings exciting the same disgust ; the roads 
crowded with the same way-worn, hungry wretchedness ; 
the same improvidence begetting the same indigence ; the 
same restlessness encouraging the same idleness ; the same 
creed inculcating the same recklessness of life ; famine 
met by the same absence of prudent precaution : distress 



88 



DEGRADATION 



— CRIMES — 



AMERICA. 



terminating in the same appalling mortality. Our nature 
would not debase man, if man did not debase our nature. 
A change there has been in the peasantry — from the rude 
essays of that day, to a better-organized proficiency in the 
mystery of murder. The passions of the priests operate 
upon the passions of the people. Altar denunciations are 
the pious exhortations of the one, the bullets of the secret 
assassin the expiatory offerings of the other ! With a 
clergy the apologists, instead of the detectors of guilt, 
crimes cease to be regarded as sins. Walls and planta- 
tions, the evidence of wealth and cultivation in other 
countries, have only arisen in Ireland — to furnish more 
covert protection to secret conspiracy Religion has be- 
come more subsidiary to crime — the confessional more 
assuredly the sanctuary of the assassin, — the shelter of 
confederacies — which suck into the vortex of guilt — men 
who, if well guided, would shudder at participation in such 
enormities. Nature will yet rise indignant against such 
a system ! 

The close of the last century was distinguished by im- 
portant epochs. Amongst them — First, the revolt of the 
favourite colonies of England, "an event," in the words 
of Burke, " which shook the pillars of a commercial empire 
that circled the globe ;" their subsequent elevation into 
the United States of America, a free and mighty country. 
Second, the achievement by the volunteers of the legislative 
independence of Ireland. Both remarkable events — both 
exempted from priestly interference — and both successful ! 
The first British settlement in America was attempted in 
1583 ; the independence of the British colonies was acknow- 
ledged in 1783 — two centuries after. The discovery of 
America was almost coeval with the decline of papal power. 
A possession never enjoyed by the grasping ambition of 



UNITED STATES — CATHOLICISM. 



89 



Rome could not be considered as ever lost, or as ever to 
be regained. In the United States the Catholic priest- 
hood are accordingly quiescent. Where the church has 
rot ventured to grasp at political usurpation, the clergy 
have not dared to assert that authority. The founders of 
transatlantic freedom quitted England, when the principles 
of liberty were high — in the exiles predominant : the young 
country inherits their attachment with their blood. Proud 
of her ancestral honours, America embodies the early 
annals of England with her own. Retaining the freshness 
of nationality, she has as yet preserved at least her inde- 
pendence from European contamination. Her repub- 
licanism still inculcates indelible dislike to political tyranny 
— the twin sister of spiritual despotism. Catholicity in 
the States has no ancient claims to enforce— no lost supre- 
macy to reclaim. Watched by the zealous eye of dissent, 
it barely exists ; — exciting occasional tumults amongst its 
ignorant followers in the towns, an object of national 
distrust, the vigilance of the Federative Government has 
been as yet efficient for its control. America adopting 
the example of England, is equally dignified and distant 
in her relations with the Roman see. So long as she 
defines and dictates their duties to the priesthood, the 
priesthood will find attempts against her liberties, as dan- 
gerous — as electrical experiments with the lightning ! 

The year 1782 presents an extraordinary spectacle in 
the annals of Ireland, upwards of forty thousand men in 
arms, assembled, equipped, disciplined, commissioned by 
themselves. " A voice from America," said Henry Flood 
in the Irish Parliament, " shouted to liberty ; the people 
caught the sound as it crossed the Atlantic, and they 
continued it till it reverberated here ;" but the volunteers 
were almost exclusively Protestant. The war with Ame- 



90 



VOLUNTEERS. 



rica had withdrawn the army of the King from Ireland, 
and left her coasts exposed to invasion. If the volun- 
teers owed their existence to the period of national dis- 
aster, they met, if necessary, to repel the foreign foe. The 
gentry composed that army ; it was led by the noble, 
landed, commercial, intellectual aristocracy of the country; 
they associated for the redress of real, not imaginary 
wrongs, and on the cessation of those wrongs, they 
grounded their arms. That national confederation em- 
braced all that was independent in fortune, exalted in 
rank, elevated by superior acquirements ; it did not bow 
blind obedience to the behests of a demagogue dictator, 
nor lean for applause and support on rude and uncivilized 
masses. Above all, it despised and disdained an alliance 
with priests. " Under its protection," declared Grattan, 
" her sons were no longer an arbitrary gentry, a ruined 
commonalty ; Protestants oppressing Catholics, Catholics 
groaning under oppression ; Ireland was now a united 
land." The high, the chivalrous spirit which actuated 
that body towards the Catholics, in their struggle for the 
independence of Ireland — may be estimated from the 
resolutions of the Protestant volunteers of Ulster assem- 
bled on the 15th of February 1782. Referring to the 
Relief Bill of 1778, they declared " as men, as Irishmen, 
as Christians, and as Protestants, they rejoiced in the 
relaxation of the penal laws against their Roman Catholic 
fellow-subjects ; and conceived the measure to be fraught 
with the happiest consequences to the union and pro- 
sperity of the inhabitants of Ireland." The republican 
simplicity of the newly-established government in America, 
where all power flowed directly from the people, where 
an established religion did not exist, and where the 
highest office in the state was open to the ambition of 



FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



91 



every citizen, had captivated theoretic minds, and alienated 
enthusiastic men from their admiration of the more an- 
cient and more aristocratic institutions around them. 

The volunteers achieved a revolution of peace. The 
next European revolution was one of horrors ; the first, — 
THE French Revolution, — subverting alike the altar and 
the throne. The demon of that event was the terror and 
dismay of the world, — every European state was in turn 
a witness of its atrocities — every one, save England, a 
victim " While every part of the Continent, from Moscow 
to Lisbon, has been the theatre of bloody and devastating 
wars, no hostile standard has been seen there, save as a 
trophy."* Of revolutionary France, it had been predicted 
by Burke that, before its final settlement, it should pass 
through every variety of untried being, in all its transmi- 
grations to be purified by fire and blood. Inscribed with 
a dedication to liberty and equality, that revolution 
erected at home an appalling and sanguinary despotism — 
attempted abroad universal subjugation. To the sanctity, 
meekness, self-denial, and humility of the clergy cannot, 
however, be attributed the terrific vengeance with which 
popular frenzy pursued them We have the high autho- 
rity of Montesquieu that, before that revolution, the rights 
of the church were denied by its priesthood to those — who 
did not bequeath to it large portions of their properties.! 
Expelled and outlawed from what had been a Catholic 
country, shocked at the atrocities of infidel France, that 
priesthood looked to Ireland, even under Protestant rule, 
as the sanctuary of their faith. They beheld Great Bri- 
tain alone sustaining everywhere the cause of order and 
religion, — British fleets humbling the pride and counter- 

* Macaulay's History, vol. i., p 280. 
t Vol. p. 374. 



92 



BRITISH DRAGOONS IN ROMAN STATES. 



acting the advance of political licentiousness and impious 
infidelity, united in an incestuous alliance, — British dra- 
goons furnishing the guards in the dominions of the Pope, — 
British officers decorated by Pius VI. with medals of gold.* 
Mr. Burke was anxious for diplomatic relations with the 
Papal Court, and in a letter of the 3rd of October 1793, 

* The regiment on whom the duty devolved was the 12th 
Light Dragoons, now 12th Royal Lancers. In 1793, after the 
English had occupied Toulon, the 12th Light Dragoons were 
sent to the Mediterranean. On the abandonment of that naval 
fortress, part of the regiment was present at the taking of Bastia, 
in Corsica, which surrendered on the 22nd of May, 1794. 
Corsica, the birth-place of Napoleon, was, on the 22nd of July, 
1794, formally annexed to England; the "London Gazette" of 
that date declaring " the Roman Catholic the only national religion 
of Corsica." The remainder of the regiment, after suffering 
much on service, was landed at Civita Vecchia, near Rome, and 
served in the Papal States for some time. The officers were 
formally introduced to the Pope, who, taking one of their helmets 
in his hand, ejaculated a prayer, " that heaven would enable the 
cause of truth and religion to triumph over injustice and infi- 
delity !" and placed it on the head of Captain Brown. Previous 
to their embarkation for England, a letter was addressed by the 
Pope to the regiment, dated from the Vatican, May 30th 1794, 
signed by Cardinal de Zelada, the Secretary of State. In it he 
assures them, that " the marked consideration which the holy 
father has always entertained, and never will cease to entertain, 
for the generous and illustrious English nation, induces him not 
to neglect the opportunity of giving a proof of it by the stay 
of a British regiment at Civita Vecchia. As his holiness cannot 
but applaud the regular and praiseworthy conduct of the troops 
in question, he has determined to evince his entire satisfaction 
in presenting a gold medal to each of the officers," including 
General Sir James Stewart, Baronet, and Colonel Erskine. And 
he concludes by expressing — " the feelings by which his holiness 
was animated, and the lively desire which he entertains of mani- 
festing on all occasions his unalterable regard, whether it be 
towards the nation, or towards every individual Englishman !" 
— Cannon's "Historic Records of the British Army — 12th Royal 
Lancers," p. 19. 



POPE PIUS VI. —REPUBLICAN FRANCE. 



93 



addressed to Sir John Cox Hippesley, then at Rome, 
thus speaks of that pope : — " I confess I would, if the 
matter rested with me, enter into much more distinct and 
avowed political connexions with the Court of Rome than 
hitherto we have held. If we decline them, the bigotry 
will be on our part, and not on that of his holiness. Much 
mischief has happened, and much good, I am convinced, 
been prevented by our unnatural alienation. If the pre- 
sent state of the world has not taught us better things, 
our error is very much our fault. This good correspond- 
ence could not begin more auspiciously than in the person 
of the present sovereign pontiff, who unites the royal and 
sacerdotal characters with advantage and lustre to both. 
He is indeed a prelate whose dignity as a prince takes 
nothing from his humility as a priest, and whose mild 
condescension as a Christian bishop, far from impairing, in 
him exalts the awful and imposing authority of the secular 
sovereign." That priesthood afterwards saw that pope, a 
prisoner in his own capital — the Roman states — the holy 
city itself invaded by the republican French ; " an inva- 
sion accompanied," in the language of a great British 
minister, •' by outrages and insults towards the pious and 
venerable pontiff, in spite of the sanctity of his age, and 
the unsullied purity of his character, which even to a 
Protestant seem hardly short of the guilt of sacrilege."* 
Worse than sacrilege it must have been to that priest- 
hood — to behold their revered head, bending under the 
weight of eighty winters, carried in captivity to France ; 
on the 27th of August 1799, expiring unnoticed, unho- 
noured, unattended in the obscure French town of Valence, t 

* Mr. Pitt, his speech on the 3rd of February, 1800. 
t "While France was persecuting and pillaging, England was 
forswearing the Pope at home, befriending him abroad. An 



94 



BRITISH MARINES IN ROME. 



That clergy were destined again to witness, even before 
the pontificate of his successor Pius VII. had commenced, 
a British commodore clearing the papal dominions of their 
enemies the French — British marines sentries on the gates 
of Rome.* Abandoned, betrayed, assailed by its former 

Irish Catholic priest, the Reverend Arthur O'Leary, a gentleman, 
a scholar, and a Christian, who would have been an ornament to 
any church, more particularly alluded to hereafter, and to whom 
a subsequent note is devoted, thus eloquently eulogised and de- 
scribed the fate of Pope Pius YI. — " Emperors, kings, and princes 
flocked to Rome, to see something greater than Rome itself — a 
pontiff, uniting in his person the experience of age with the 
vigour of mind and enterprising genius of youth : the outward 
charms of the most fascinating figure, with the improvement of 
the most cultivated mind, and the magnanimity of a temporal 
prince with all the meekness and piety of an apostle." ..." It 
was that " (French) " philosophy, whose insatiate thirst for blood 
could not be satisfied with hecatombs of human victims, amongst 
whom kings, queens, princesses, aged and venerable prelates, 
priests, and levites were offered on its polluted altars, — until it 
chained to its triumphal car, and sprinkled for the sacrifice a 
high-priest and prince, before whose majestic countenance and 
silver locks a victorious Alexander would have fallen prostrate? 
as that conqueror did, when he met Jaddeus the high-priest clad 
in his pontifical robes with the prophecies in his hand at the 
gates of Jerusalem." ..." That pontiff they led to the sacrifice, 
far from St. Peter's shrine, where he prayed to be permitted to 
die, and where he wished for the crown of martyrdom. The 
i staff of old age ' is always mentioned with veneration ; and when 
propping the drooping body of a hoary sage, it was ever con- 
sidered by savage, as well as civilized nations, as the sceptre of 
reverence. Without regard to the propriety, which nature itself 
suggests to the uncultivated savage, his enemies deprived Pius 
YI., bending under the weight of years, of the support of his 
tremulous steps, and sent his cane as a trophy to the French 
Directory, in whose hall it is exposed, as the poles on which the 
sacred ark was carried in procession were put up in the Temple 
of Dagon, in the unhallowed land of the Philistines." 

* See Commodore Troubridge's Despatches, dated H. M. S. 
" Culloden," off Civita Yecchia — Annual Register, 1799 ; Appen- 



STUART RACE. 



95 



allies, its ancient vassals, — the popedom again befriended 
by England ! 

The intrigues and calamities of former reigns, the 
avowed claims of two pretenders, the existence and 
Catholic predilections of the regal line of Stuart,* tended 

dix to Chronicle, p. 131. — See also the treaty of capitulation of 
the French, dated Civita Vecchia, October 5th, 1799. By the 
third article, 300 British troops were put in possession of the 
gate of Cavilligiere and the hospitals at Rome, until the complete 
evacuation of the holy city by the French. 

* Charles Edward Stuart, styled the Second Pretender, grandson 
of James II., eldest son of James, the Chevalier St. George, who 
married Maria Clementina Sobieski, after the failure of his expe- 
dition to Scotland inl745, resided at Rome, where he legitimatized 
his natural daughter by Clementina Walkingshaw, and, by a vain 
act of visionary sovereignty, created her Duchess of Albany. He 
died on the 7th of January 1788 ; and in the funeral ceremonies 
the Irish Franciscan friars were alone admitted to the chamber 
of death. The body was embalmed, and coffined in full dress, 
with the George and St. Andrew in pinchbeck ; an inscription was 
prepared in lead, with Carditis III. Britannice Rex, and a wooden 
crown and sceptre were carved and gilt; but, by one of those steps 
from the sublime to the ridiculous so frequent in the Stuart 
annals, the former, from deference to the papal Court, was placed 
under the coffin lid, and the latter were carefully hidden in cotton 
wadding. — Quart. Review, vol. lxxix., p. 163. The titular Duchess 
was much spoken of for her attachment to Alfieri, the Italian 
dramatic poet. She did not long survive her father. She died 
in 1789. Her mother died long after, at an extreme old age, at 
Fribourgh, in Switzerland, and was called Countess of AlberstrofF. 
Henry Benedict Maria Clemens, the second son of James the first 
Pretender, was born at Rome on the 26th of March 1725 ; he was 
made Bishop of Frascati, and named a cardinal on the 3rd of July 
1747. On the death of his brother Charles he had medals struck, 
bearing his head, with an incription, " Henricus Nonus Anglice 
Bex on the reverse, " Dei Gratia, sed non voluntate ffominum." 
In asserting his royal titles, he seems like the Pope who excom- 
municated Elizabeth, to have forgotten the Island of Saints. He 
was afterwards generally known as the Cardinal of York, and his 
signature was Henry Cardinal. The Cardinal had, besides a resi- 



96 



PE N T AL CODE. — RELAXATIONS. 



to preserve the penal code untouched during the reigns of 
the early Georges. The first measure of enfranchisement 
was in 1778, when Catholics were empowered to take 
long leases, and relieved from various incapacities in their 

dence at Rome, a valuable collection of curiosities and interesting 
manuscripts at his villa at Frascati, which were plundered by 
the French, or confiscated by French commissioners for the 
museums and libraries of Paris. In order to assist Pope Pius VI. 
in making up the heavy contribution insisted on by Bonaparte in 
1796, the Cardinal disposed of the family jewels, and amongst 
them of a ruby, the largest and most perfect then known, valued 
at 50,000/. sterling. After that he resided privately at his villa, 
from which he was obliged to fly from the French ; and he arrived 
in Venice in the winter of 1798, aged, infirm, plundered, and 
destitute. In the Castlereagh Correspondence is a letter from 
the Cardinal, dated July 5th 1800, from Frascati, to which he 
had returned, complaining " of the total devastation of all his 
residences, both at Rome and Frascati," and "of the incredible 
devastations which those enemies of humanity had committed 
and expressing great gratitude for the pecuniary aid which he 
had received from the royal bounty of England. — Vol. iii., pp. 385, 
386. An annuity of 4000?. a-year, payable half-yearly out of the 
privy purse, had been settled on him for life ; and the intima- 
tion of it was conveyed with great delicacy in a letter from Lord 
Minto, then British Plenipotentiary in the Mediterranean, through 
Sir John Cox Hippesley, who was resident at Rome. The 
Cardinal, in a letter to Sir John, dated Venice, 7th May 1800, ac- 
knowledges " His most gracious Majesty's noble and spontaneous 
generosity ;" and enclosed one from Pope Pius VII., previously 
Cardinal Chearamonte, who had then just succeeded Pius VI., 
and being a relative, had adopted the same name, assuring him — 
" We will not suffer that England should find, seated in the pon- 
tifical chair of Rome, another pontiff differing from him, who so 
invariably acknowledged the kindness and friendship that England 
entertained for him." The family had an honorary claim on 
England : by the settlement on the marriage of James II. with 
Mary Beatrice of Este, a jointure of 50,000?. had been provided 
for her, and she survived till 1718, when large arrears were un- 
paid, but of course irrecoverable. The Civil List supplied the 
exigencies of the last of the Stuarts. The Cardinal diedu pwards 



IRELAND — ELECTIVE FRANCHISE. 



97 



persons and properties. The next was in 1781, enabling 
them to hold estates ; the next in 1792 and 1793, 
removing many disabilities, placed them at least on a 
level with Protestant Dissenters. A measure of general 
parliamentary reform had been introduced into the Irish 
Parliament in 1793, by Mr. George Ponsonby, afterwards 
Lord Chancellor of Ireland, so extensive as almost to 
amount to universal suffrage, but it was lost by the indif- 
ference of all classes.* " A mistress," said Henry Flood, 
" which the people of Ireland sought for with a lover's 
appetite, was, when brought to their embraces, repudiated 
with a lover's inconstancy-" It has been observed that the 
Act which passed in .1793, in elevating the peasant class 
by conferring on them the elective franchise, in depressing 
the higher classes of the Catholics by continuing their ex- 
clusion from the Senate and the Bench, began at the 
wrong end.f It is probable that reversed legislation 
would have tended to the advantage by the improvement 

of 82 years of age, in 1807 ; and with him expired the Act for the 
Attainder of the Blood. The Cardinal had considerable estates 
in Mexico, which were confiscated in the revolutions of the 
American dominions of Spain. — Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxiv., 
pp. 31, 34, 36 ; vol. lxxvii., p. 883. He bequeathed to George IV. 
the garter which his great-grandfather, Charles I., had worn on 
his execution, which was interwoven with 400 diamonds. — 
Quarterly Review, vol. lxviii, p. 420. Lord Mahon remarks — 
" The funeral rites of Charles Edward were performed by his 
brother, the Cardinal, at Frascati. In the vault of that church 
he mouldering the remains of what was once a brave and gallant 
heart ; and beneath St. Peter's dome, a stately monument, from 
the chisel of Canova, has since been raised to the memory of 
James III, Charles III., and Henry IX., Icings of England, names 
which an Englishman can hardly read without a smile and a sigh." 
That monument was erected at the expense of England. 

* Plowden's Ireland. 

f Evidence of the late A. R. Blake. 

II 



98 EARL ROSSE — REMARKABLE PREDICTIONS: 



of both, — to the more secure consolidation of imperial 
power. 

The debate in the Irish Parliament on that measure, 
furnishes a singular instance of accurate prediction, as to 
the use and abuse of the elective franchise in Ireland. 
Theobald Wolfe Tone had early declared " Sir Lawrence 
Parsons," afterwards Lord Rosse, " to be almost the 
only honest man in the Irish House of Commons." On 
the measure of conferring the franchise on the Catholics 
in 1793, he reasoned in that parliament thus — " Reli- 
gion is a subject on which prejudice overrules reason. 
The number of the Catholics exceeds that of the Pro- 
testants, consequently if the Catholics have an equal 
right of franchise, they must become the majority of 
voters at almost every popular election. Though the 
inferior Catholics might vote with their landlords, they 
might also vote against them — interest might lead them 
one way — bigotry another. It is the expiring embers of 
civil discords which inflame the sects against each other — 
not oppression ; and although abolition may cool, it will 
not quench them. You give the franchise to men in great 
poverty, in great ignorance, bigoted to their sect and 
their altars, repelled by ancient prejudices from you — at 
least four times your number. By the elective franchise, 
they will almost in every county, in the three provinces 
out of the four, be the majority of the electors, controlling 
you, overwhelming you, resisting and irresistible. 
Suppose the inferior Catholics, on obtaining the franchise, 
should meet in the parishes to determine on the exercise 
of it — that they should nominate in their chapels their 
representatives to the parliament, as they lately did 
their delegates to the Convention — what would there be to 
prevent them ? The power of the landlords might do 



THEIR REALIZATION. 



99 



much, but the power of religion might do much more. 
How much might these people be wrought on by their 
priests at their altars, working on their superstition and 
their ignorance ? How easily might they be persuaded, 
that their temporal as well as their eternal felicity 
depended upon their uniting together in the exercise of 
that franchise ? They will be told if you unite your 
suffrages, — your ancient religion, which has been prostrated 
and humiliated and reviled, may once more rear its head, 
and appear in all its pristine magnificence ; and after the 
wrongs of centuries, you may do an act of great justice to 
your priests, your altars, and your God, which shall 
shower down wealth and power upon you in this world, 
and eternal glory in the next."* Have we not recently 
seen these predictions uttered sixty years since by prophetic 
wisdom, fully realized ? While during that period in the 
transitions of property, the farm to which the franchise 
was incident may have changed twenty owners, the heritage 
of that ignorance, of that bigotry, " racy of the soil/' has 
descended unimpaired Religious animosities doubly 
embittered, religious detestations daily becoming more 
envenomed, more rudely than ever lacerate the ligaments 
which ought to bind the Catholic peasant to his Protestant 
protector, whose property confers upon him the franchise 
which he exercises. A severance rude and unsocial, fatal 
alike to the interests of both — blighting the kindlier re- 
lations of the one, blasting the natural allegiance of the 
other. A seemly deference to rank, station, property, 
education, and authority, is essential to the well-being of 
every well-regulated society ; in the respective positions 
of landlord and tenant, a tendency to acquiesce in the 
wishes and advice of relative superiority adjusts the happi- 

* Irish Parliamentary Debates, February 18th, 1793. 

H 2 



100 



CURRAN — BURKE — MAYNOOTH. 



ness of both. Example is the light which ought to guide 
the social dependent ; — when religious influence becomes 
dominant and despotic, for purposes neither moral nor 
spiritual, the necessary result is angry and painful reaction, 
too often stimulated by exasperation and revenge. The 
dissensions of rival creeds have been in Ireland the con- 
stant instruments of national degradation ; — the transfer 
of authority from the proprietors to the priests, will only 
tend to perpetuate that degradation : — " Without the aid 
of its Protestant rank, its intellect, and its property," 
declared Outran, " Ireland can do no more for herself 
now, than she has done for centuries heretofore, when she 
lay a helpless hulk upon the water."* 

The enfranchisement of the Catholic laity was im- 
mediately followed by the establishment in 1795 of the 
Ecclesiastical College of Maynooth, a measure recom- 
mended by the wisdom of Edmund Burke, in the hope of 
improving the clergy. His prophetic spirit, which had 
declared that the Catholic priesthood should be educated 
by the state for the state, could scarcely have foreseen or 
calculated the effects of the system he proposed. Mr 
O'Connell, at the same time — the creator of priestly influ- 
ence and its creature — seemed to feel the degrading 
inferiority of the Irish home-made priests. Contrasting 
the clergy of the two religions, in his evidence before the 
Committee of the House of Lords in 1825, he remarked, 
" The Protestant clergy are of a higher class, and are 
more educated for society ; their education is therefore 
what one would call of a superior character." f • . . " The 
Irish priesthood" of his early day, observed the cele- 
brated Catholic leader, Mr. Sheil, " are divided into two 

* Speech at Newry, October 17th, 1812. 
+ Parliamentary Keports, vol. viii., p. 143. 



PRIESTHOOD— CONTRAST. 



101 



classes, those who have graduated in the continental 
nurseries, and those to whom the policy of later times has 
given a domestic education at Maynooth — the latter by 
no means an improvement. Gloomy and intolerant, they 
have all the pride without the learning of the cloister, the 
pedantry of the schools contracts their understandings; 
the discipline of the church formalizes their manners. The 
old school was equally zealous — much less repulsive. A 
foreign education sweetened their brogue, softened their 
manners, and gave then an air of the world unimagined 
by their successors." More than a quarter of a century 
has passed over us since this outline was touched, but it 
presents far too flattering a character of the country priest 
as he now appears; self- excommunicated from cultivated 
life, the Irish priest must become again a gentleman, as 
his predecessor often was, — to be again welcome in the 
society of gentlemen. We are indebted to the same hand 
at a different period, for the portraiture of the clergy, 
not as they are, but as they ought to be. " The inde- 
fatigable instructors of the peasantry, their counsellors in 
affliction, their resource in calamity, their preceptors and 
their models in religion, their visitors in sickness, their 
companions at the bed of death." We, however, see them 
" equally insolent to the humble, and sycophantic to the 
great — flatterers when admitted to the great man's table, 
and extortioners in the poor man's hovel — slaves in politics 
and tyrants in demeanor."* 

The clergy of the earlier period, subdued by the 
traditions of adversity, unseduced by political ambition 
from their sacred duties, were not separated from society 
by any exasperating demarcations. Those of the present 

* Speech at Penenden Heath in 1827. 



102 



MAYNOOTH-REARED PRIESTS. 



day by their conduct and demeanor disassociate themselves 
from civilization, and affiliating in mischievous organization 
with the plebeian baseness from which they sprung, — 
create a fraternity of ignorance, a confederacy fanatical 
and exclusive. Rude and turbulent vulgarity forbids the 
refining of their minds and manners, by the blandishments 
of domestic intercourse — by the interchange of polished 
civilities with the higher classes of a different creed. 
While events have liberalized the minds and feelings of 
the Protestant gentry — the Catholic priesthood have be- 
come proportionably morose, uncourteous, and unsocial. 
The costume and habit they have recently assumed 
constitute more distinctive badges of sectarian separation, 
while the indelible brand that marks them for exclusion, 
has been inflicted on their own foreheads, from conscious- 
ness of inferiority — by themselves. Produced by imper- 
fect civilization without, grafted upon imperfect education 
within the walls of Maynooth, — such are the state-reared 
foundlings of an adverse creed. The boy who has been 
transferred from the care of cows and cornfields to Maynooth 
has seen but little, and knows less, of the monuments and 
progress of civilization in other countries. The mind not 
originally of sterling ore, which is compressed within the 
narrow circle of dogmatic theology, is not sufficiently 
elastic in its spring, to expand beyond its early or here- 
ditary habits. The student buried for a few months 
within the cloisters of Maynooth is dug out a priest, 
and returns to his native fields to say prayers, and preach 
politics to those who are about as enlightened as himself 
— There, the little information he possesses is made, by the 
insolent assumption of superiority, an engine still more to 
debase the people. Their ignorance teaches them only this, 
to receive and regard the poison that falls from the lips of 



SLAVERY — TYRANNY — AGITATION. 



103 



the priest as oracular. The indignation of the Christian 
world is daily roused at the atrocity of that system, which 
still sanctions the infliction of stripes on those upon whom, 
an African or American sun has burnt the complexion of 
the negro slave : the Maynooth priest captivated with the 
example, and insisting on the same authority as the slave- 
driver, deems it not degrading to his fellow-Christians in 
their native land — not derogatory to that faith which 
elevates the mind to heaven — not desecrating to the temple 
where he teaches that the divinity is enshrined — publicly, 
and within the precincts of his chapel, to use the horse- 
whip on their backs. In the retirement of his parish, the 
only book of the priest is often his breviary. Isolated by 
the defects of his breeding from associations that could 
instruct or improve, he makes politics his religion, — reli- 
gion his politics, — and cultivates the study of turbulent 
agitation. The tardy cession of emancipation taught 
those, whom high sense of honour did not render scrupu- 
lous — whom nature did not endow with the capacity to 
appreciate justice — whom no kindness could render grate- 
ful — to delude the people, by representing that they had 
extorted that — from fear, which had perhaps been too long 
denied by policy. From the exercise of the simple right 
of petitioning, as from a seminal principle of mischief, 
sprung amongst the priesthood — that many-headed 
monster — Agitation, which in its varied transmigrations 
of being —associate, precursor, repealer, rebel, religionist, 
communist, leveller — has been so disastrous to Ireland — 
" affrighting the isle from its propriety." With timely 
concession it might have fallen stillborn, — coercive 
vigour might have strangled it at its birth, and saved the 
country from the shame of its many abortions. In states, 



104 AMERICA — SCOTLAND — ENGLAND — IRELAND. 

where the minds of men are free, as America and England, 
national excitement is generally purely political. The 
religion of Scotland differs from that of England, not to 
produce disunion nor discord ; in both — public opinion 
operates as a stimulant and a check. In Ireland there is 
no public — one portion of the community is decided 
in political as well as religious dissent, the other 
submits its judgment to priestly dictation, and blindly 
obeys its injunctions. We seek in vain for that moral 
control, which, while it elevates to high enterprise, sub- 
dues to the level of rational practibility, and subsides into 
popular content. In Ireland, under the dangerous and 
despotic influences of home-bred priests, political excite- 
ment cannot exist without religious fanaticism, pressing 
upon the two most sensitive springs of human action — 
ignorant prejudice and bigoted infatuation. An uneducated 
clergy raised into unnatural importance, and encouraged 
to become the allies of insubordination, is the greatest 
evil which the struggles of intolerance, or the contests of 
rival factions have bequeathed to Ireland. Dark and gloomy 
passions are the certain habitants of minds uncultivated — 
untutored by early associations — secluded from society — 
unstored with the treasures of ancient or modern lore. 
Erudition, science, taste are unsuited to the educational 
training — philosophic reasoning too cold for the intelligence 
of the Irish home-bred priests. The compositions to suit 
their tastes must kindle bad passions, must scandalize 
public men, profane public principles, must circulate 
exasperation, must pervert truth, — instead of combining 
learning, logic, wit, argument, there must be a total 
absence of all. 

With minds thus predisposed for the impression of 



PRESS — MARVEL — RACES. 105 

every absurdity, of every wickedness, — they exclusively 
imbibe their political notions and knowledge of passing 
events, from the interested ravings of a pestilent press, 
which suits in its adaptations, in the disgusting extrava- 
gance of its doctrines, in its detestation of the exalted 
and ennobling principles of liberty, the intellectual capa- 
cities, the high cultivation, the pure nationality of the 
Academicians of Maynooth ! With them turbulence, 
intimidation, terror, tyranny are the favourite ethics of 
priestly philosophy. The censorship of the press in de- 
spotic countries is in the hands of ecclesiastics, pricipally 
Dominicans, who, seeking to subjugate the mind, preclude 
anything from transpiring which could instruct or en- 
lighten the people. In Ireland, the freedom of the press 
in the hands of bad men pandering, for their own profit, 
to base passions — for baser purposes — is made equally in- 
stcumental to the same perversion of human intellect, 
realizing the quaint irony of Marvel ! " Oh, Printing, 
how hast thou disturbed the peace of mankind ! Lead, 
when moulded into bullets, is not so mortal as when 
founded into letters." Thus instructed, thus enlightened? 
the Catholic priesthood are insolently striving to assume 
a power never attempted, never endured before, — to revive 
the dissensions of caste and creed which emancipation 
had removed ; to divide society into two distinct circles, 
that they becoming the mystic masters of one — may by 
tyrannical intolerance exclude the mixed associations of 
conviviality, mind, intelligence, education, improvement, 
from its precincts. While in England, the blood of the 
Norman has been fully transfused into the veins of the 
Saxon, and glows commingled equally in the content- 
ment of a national complexion ; — in Ireland the priests in- 
cessantly labour to render the restless distinctions of race 



106 



FRENCH DIRECTORY — TONE, 



eternal.* The effects to be anticipated on the various 
relations and gradations of life from the success of their 
mastery, may be estimated from the hatred of the Jews 
against Christ, being revived in the hatred of the 
Maynooth priests against England. 

Ireland had been from its conquest to the reign of 
Anne, the constant scene of intermittent rebellion. From 
the enactment of the penal code in that reign to its relax- 
ation, although two formidable outbreaks had occurred in 
Great Britain, Ireland had remained in tranquillity and 
peace. This was attributed to her priesthood, atoning by 
their pious and peaceful examples, for the national calami- 
ties of which they had been the causes, if not the authors. 
Republican France had, in 1796, under the ambitious 
administration of the Directory, at the instance of Theo- 

* James I., by the advice of Bacon, contemplated a national 
union of the two islands. By the recommendation of Sir John 
Davis, he attempted an union of the races in Ireland. Davis 
tells us that his Majesty " made mixed plantations of British and 
Irish that they might grow up together in one nation, only the 
Irish were in some places transplanted from the woods and 
mountains into the plains and open countries, that being removed 
like wild fruit-trees, they might grow the milder, and bear the 
better and sweeter fruit. And this truly is the master-piece and 
most excellent part of the work of reformation." " Briefly, the 
clock of the civil Government is now well set, and all the wheels 
thereof do move in order, the strings of the Irish harp, which 
the civil magistrate doth finger, are all in tune (for I omit to 
speak of the State Ecclesiastical), and made a good harmony in 
this commonweal — so that we may well conceive a hope that 
Ireland, which heretofore might properly be called the land of Ire, 
because the irascible power was 'predominant there for the space of 
400 years together, will henceforth prove a land of peace and 
concord." Vain was the hope thus expressed, and vain will 
similar anticipations ever prove, while the State endures turbu- 
lent and intemperate ecclesiastics marring the best intentions of 
man, and the beneficent designs of Providence. 



INVASION — REBELLION. 



107 



bald Wolfe Tone, a Catholic, an envoy from Ireland, 
assembled a formidable naval and military armament for 
the invasion of the island, and committed the chief 
command to Hoche, a name distingnised in historic 
annals, for his clement but effective suppression of the 
civil war in La Vendee. The fleet reached Bantry Bay ; 
but the Pope had withheld his approval ; the priests, folding 
their arms, merely looked on ; the natives hung back ; the 
very elements proved sufficient to frustrate and disperse 
the invaders. 

The prime minister of England, Mr. Pitt, declared that 
he had consented to the Relief Bill of 1793, " rather than 
risk a rebellion in Ireland." The concessions so made 
were followed by disaffection — in the short space of five 
years by a bloody rebellion. " In framing those conces- 
sions, Mr. Grattan was aided by the Lords Mountjoy and 
O'Neil, the earliest friends of the Catholics, the first 
victims of that rebellion."* Emmet and the leaders 
availed themselves of the pretexts of religion and fanati- 
cism, as firebrands to fling amongst the people.*)* They 

* Sketch of the Past and Present State of Ireland. 

f " The rebellion," observed Lord Castlereagh in a letter of the 
12th of July 1798 to Mr Wickham, "was originally a Jacobin 
conspiracy throughout the Kingdom, pursuing its objects chiefly 
with Popish instruments, the heated bigotry of that sect being- 
better suited for the republican leaders than the cold reasoning- 
disaffection of the northern Presbyterians. " — Castlereagh Cor- 
respondence, vol. i. p. 219. While Parliamentary reform and 
Catholic emancipation were the constant watchwords on the 
lips of the Protestants, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the envoy of the 
Catholics in the two Memorials presented by him in Paris to the 
French Directory, disclosed the designs of the rebel portion of 
that body. The first measure proposed by Tone was a proclama- 
tion announcing their alliance with the French Republic, to be 
followed by another, confiscating every shilling of English property 
in Ireland of every species moveable or fixed, and appropriating 
it to the national service ; and by another proclamation, recalling 
all Irishmen from the dominions and service of Great Britain 



108 



THE KEBEL LEADERS. 



indignantly disclaimed the establishment of Catholicity as 
a foundation for freedom.* If the clergy secretly excited 

under pain of being treated as emigrants: that is, outlawed. — 
Memoirs of Tone by his Son, Appendix, vol. ii. The Government 
of President Adams was extremely unwilling to afford an asylum 
to the disaffected Irish in the United States. In the same volume 
of Castlereagh Correspondence is a letter from Mr Eufus King, 
then American minister at the Court of St. James, to the Duke 
of Portland, dated London the 17th of October 1798, protesting 
against the British Government sending the Irish state prisoners 
to them. In it he remarks, " / must repeat my earnest hope, that 
these delinquents may not he permitted to proceed to the United 
States." — vol. i., p. 395. This may perhaps have arisen from 
jealousy on the part of Republican America towards Republican 
France, which, with its characteristic spirit of domination, fancied 
that the transatlantic union, then comparatively in its infancy, 
had been called into existence merely to be her handmaid ; a 
feeling shortly after resented by a declaration of open 'hostility. 
While England generously shelters the fugitive malcontents of 
every country, the reluctance of the United States to receive 
such visitors from Ireland, although Thomas Addis Emmet and 
others afterwards became excellent citizens, may be an useful 
warning to future traitors, should any such arise. Arthur 
O'Connor, one of the most aristocratic of the revolutionary leaders, 
afterwards married, in France, the only child of the celebrated 
but ill-fated Condorcet, She survives her husband. By her he 
acquired considerable property in the neighbourhood of Orleans, 
and he became a general officer in the army of France. He 
never was engaged on service. He had disapproved of the Govern- 
ment of Napoleon, who it is believed felt a mistrust of the Irish, 
and his religion being Protestant, might perhaps have been in 
his way. During the administration of Lord Melbourne, he was 
allowed to return to Ireland, in order to dispose of an estate in 
that country. While there, he repeatedly declared that the wildest 
hopes of the united Irishmen never went so far on their favourite 
subjects, emancipation and reform, as the measures of the Duke 
of Wellington and Earl Grey. He observed, however, that the 
public spirit and intellect of the country appeared to him to have 
retrograded. This he attributed to the real cause, at which he 
expressed great surprise — the increased and increasing political 
influence of the priests. 

* Their evidence before the Select Committee. 



DISSENTER — PAPIST— LOYALIST — FRANCE. 1 09 



the populace, it was as usual only to betray them by their 
abandonment. Some, but few infatuated priests did raise 
the banner of the cross to lead their followers to mas- 
sacre.* With the Catholic rabble — again a religious 
insurrection — to be again subdued ; cruel atrocities again 
perpetrated to be again followed by frightful severities, 
intense sufferings. " War on every side ; in Ulster of 
politics, elsewhere of bigotry ; the Dissenter fought, the 
Papist massacred, the loyalist cut down both. The objects 
are interesting to the enlightened — that of the Dissenters 
a republic — of the Catholics, Catholic ascendancy — of 
both, connexion with France, separation from England. 
Its results, too, are important, union with England, sepa- 
ration from France ; and both it would seem eternal." f 
The contagion of French principles had spread ; a French 
party had formed in Ireland, and that party again soli- 
cited assistance from France. We learn from the auto- 
biography of Theobald Wolfe Tone — an enthusiast in 
his enmity to England — who returned after the failure 
of the Bantry Bay expedition, and again appeared in 
Paris as the envoy of the disaffected — that he encoun- 
tered great difficulty in stimulating the hostility of the 
Directory to repeat an enterprise, which had proved so 
disastrous to the fleets and fortunes of France. A second 
squadron, consisting of one line-of-battle ship and eight 
frigates, under the command of Bompard, in 1798, left 
the French ports with the impious design of the invasion 
of Ireland ; but the ships which were spared by the ven- 
geance of heaven soon furnished in the British harbours 

* According to Mr. Plowden, out of 2,000 Catholic clergy in 
Ireland at the time of the rebellion, only nine priests were 
directly implicated in it.— History of Ireland. 

f Sketch of the Past and Present State of Ireland. 



110 



THE HOCHE — THE DONEGAL. 



fresh trophies to the victorious arms of England: — the flag- 
ship and six of the frigates were taken. The " Hoche," 
of eighty guns, the ship in which Tone, then an officer in 
the service of France, returned to Ireland, was captured 
off the northern coast of the island, and was afterwards 
commissioned, and known in our navy by the name of 
" The Donegal." In the " Donegal," Sir Arthur Welles- 
ley, whom success elevated through every gradation of 
the peerage to the dukedom of Wellington, sailed from 
Ireland in 1808 ; from the " Donegal " he landed in Por- 
tugal to fight and win the battles of Roliga and Vimeira, 
his first contests with the French, his first victories in the 
Peninsula. The coincidence seems strange, instructive, 
indicative of a presiding Providence ; that while " the 
sharp antidote against disgrace," barely rescued the cap- 
tive Tone from the ignominy of the traitor's end ;* — the 
very ship fitted out at his instance, and destined by France 

* In a letter from Lord Castlereagh, then Secretary for Ire- 
land, to Mr. Wickham, dated Dublin Castle, November 16th, 
1798, he thus explains the transaction : — "You will observe by 
the papers, that T. "W. Tone, having been sentenced by a court- 
martial to suffer death, on the morning of his execution cut his 
throat, a so as to render his recovery impossible. On the same 
day Mr. Curran moved to have him brought up by a writ of 
habeas corpus, which was, of course, granted. The return made 
to the Court was, that he could not be moved from his place of 
confinement with safety to his life ; — in this situation the matter 
rests. The opinion of the Crown lawyers has been taken, and 
they have advised, in case he is brought up before the King's 
Bench, and that it is purposed, he being in custody of the Court, 
that he shall be disposed of under the municipal law, to inquire 
into his treatment, rather than bring the question of martial 
authority to a solemn decision, which would occasion delay, em- 
barrass the Court, and, perhaps, expose the State to have its 
summary interference for its own prosecutions deferred, in a 

a This seems purely Irish, for, according to the noble Secretary, 
Tone must have cut his throat after he was executed. 



WELLESLEY— WELLINGTON. 



Ill 



for the invasion of Ireland, should have borne from Ire- 
land — to commence his career, an unbroken chain of 
triumphs — the future victor of imperial France ! 

manner injurious to the public safety." b Tone had been born 
in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College for the bar. He 
appeared before the Court-martial in the French uniform of a 
" Chef de Brigade" a Colonel. He said he had not taken any 
military oath, so as to render him amenable to an English mili- 
tary tribunal ; but declared, " that he had served in the army 
destined for the invasion of England, when it was commanded 
by Bonaparte, by Dessaix, and by Castlemaine, who was also a 
native of Ireland." The return to the writ would have raised 
two questions ; first, that the rebellion being then suppressed, 
and no war in the country, martial law, which was authorized by 
the statute only while the rebels were in arms in the field, was 
then at an end ; secondly, that although born a British subject, 
still holding a commission from the government de facto of 
France, Tone was not amenable to British military law. Mr. 
Curran, in moving for the writ, said, " I do not pretend, that 
Mr. Tone is not guilty of the charges of which he was accused." 
. . . " I stand upon the sacred and immutable principle of 
the constitution, that martial law and civil law are incompatible, 
and that the former must cease with the existence of the latter." d 
His death by his own hand on the 19th of November seems to 
have relieved the Government from serious embarrassment. In 
the same collection is a letter from General Sir John Moore, who 
had been a member of the Court-martial, and who afterwards 
fell in the arms of victory at Cortina, referring to the application 
for the writ, on which he remarks : — " This is so far fortunate, 
as it is to stop for the future all trials by Courts-martial for 
civil offences ; and things are to revert to their former and usual 
channel." 6 Sir Walter Scott, in Appendix No. 6 to his Life 
of Napoleon, has extracted from the Memoirs of Tone, by his 
son, an interesting account of an interview which his widow had 
with the Emperor. He allowed the widow a pension, and he 
had the son admitted to and educated in the cavalry school of 
St. Cyr. 

b Despatches of Viscount Castlereagh, by his brother, the Marquis 
of Londonderry, vol. ii., p. 

c Memoirs of Tone, by his Son, vol. ii., p. 259. 

d Ibid., vol. ii., p. 369. e Castlereagh Despatches. 



112 



THE UNION. 



The Catholic nobility, prelacy, and gentry attested 
their loyalty by their devotion to British connexion ; of 
the four members of the Irish Directory only one was a 
Catholic. Victims of the harsh legislation of those whom 
time at least had naturalized as their own countrymen, 
they looked forward with hope, even to the stepdame 
Austerity of Protestant England. To protect them from 
themselves, the Irish tendered the independence of their 
country as the price of their individual freedom, and pur- 
chased a closer connexion with England, by the surrender 
of the birthright of the people. To her position Ireland 
owed the calamity of conquest, to her weakness her de- 
pendence ; to both, — her incorporation in the British com- 
monwealth. That incorporation, in which the hands of 
the Catholics were alone unpolluted amidst the general 
corruption, was sealed in the measure of the Union, 
closing the last, opening the present century, — " that key- 
stone which binds together the noble and well-constructed 
arch of our empire." 



THE FRENCH AS INVADERS. 



113 



CHAPTER V. 

During the rebellion in Ireland Pius VI. was still 
Pope, the example, the oracle of the Catholic hierarchy ; 
that hierarchy, under due subordination, was mainly 
instrumental in the suppression of that rebellion. Edward 
Dillon, the Catholic Bishop of Kilnefora, and afterwards 
Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, published an address to the 
Catholic laity on the 6th of April 1798, vividly pointing 
out to them what they had to expect from such visitors as 
the French. "I will not hesitate to declare, that the 
wrath of heaven could scarcely visit us with a more dread- 
ful scourge. Witness the atrocities which have marked 
their steps in every country, in which they have intruded 
themselves. Treasures and valuable effects carried off 
under the name of contributions ; the smallest opposition to 
the will of those apostles of liberty, attended with the most 
horrid devastations ; churches pillaged and profaned — our 
holy religion proscribed ; even lately a respectable nation* 
given up to carnage and slaughter, for having attempted 
to defend the constitution and laws under which they and 
their ancestors lived for ages, a brave, frugal, and happy 
people. The supreme pastor of our church not only 
reviled and calumniated in the most impudent manner, but 
also stripped of that property, which enabled him to display 
a generosity and benevolence worthy of his high station, 
* Switzerland. 

I 



114 



THE BISHOPS — MAYNOOTH. 



and to propagate the gospel of Christ amongst the remotest 
nations of the globe. Such are a part of the blessings, which 
under the specious name of liberty, have been bestowed 
on many neighbouring countries, by the rulers of the 
French people ; ' Ill-fated people,' destined to wade through 
torrents of blood in quest of that liberty which hath 
hitherto escaped their pursuit — more restless than the 
waves of the ocean which beat against their shores, have 
they plunged from revolution to revolution, the sport of 
every prevailing faction, and are at length compelled to 
bend under the iron rod of tyrants, more despotic than 
any of the kings who swayed the sceptre of their nation/'* 
The bishops assembled at Maynooth on the 11th of May 
17 98, published resolutions, in which they declared — " After 
considering with grief the unhappy system of political 
delirium, which after having marked its progress through 
some of the most cultivated parts of Christendom, by the 
destruction of order, morality and religion, appears to be 
making such strides as menace ruin to everything we 
should venerate and esteem as Christians and as men, we 
think it expedient to order the most vigilant control over 
the conduct of every individual, admitted in any manner 
to a participation of the benefits of the College/' They 
then " empowered the president to punish by expulsion 
such person or persons, as may by their actions or discourse 
abet or support any doctrines, tending to subvert a due 
regard to the established authorities ; and the students are 
admonished that on those topics, and in these critical times, 
a conduct not only free from crime, but even from suspicion, 
ought to be expected from their gratitude, their attested 
^allegiance, and sacred professional destination." "f* It is 

* Castlereagh Despatches, vol. i., pp. 174, 175. 

f Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 1845, vol. lxxx., p. 730. 



CLERGY — CONTRAST. 



115 



much to be apprehended that these resolutions inculcating 
loyalty and grateful recollections, have been banished from 
the archives of Maynooth, as the sentiments they inculcated 
have been forgotten there. The admonitions of the 
bishops were requisite and well timed, for out of seven 
hundred students at Trinity College, only twenty-seven 
were expelled for treasonable principles, and all of those 
but four were Catholics : out of sixty or seventy students 
at Maynooth, thirty-six were found to be implicated.* 

The severities of the penal code and its terrors had 
produced a prelacy and a clergy, who in the simplicity of 
their manners, the sincerity of their faith, the purity of 
their lives, almost typified the benignity of the religion 
they professed. All the elders of the Catholic clergy at 
the close of the last century, had been educated at foreign 
universities. Travel and superior cultivation made them 
reserved, and rather detached them from the people ; 
trained in the submissive doctrines of the continental 
schools, they were attached to authority ; primitive in 
their manners, stainless in their morals, a purer body of 
men never laboured in a Christian mission — timid from 
their position, devoted to their flocks — instead of exciting, 
they allayed turbulence, they assuaged sedition. The 
eminent Grattan thus spoke in Parliament of Arthur 
O'Leary, one of the body: — "A man of learning, a 
philosopher, a Franciscan, did the most eminent service to 
his country in the hour of her greatest need. Poor in 
everything but genius and philosophy, he had no property 
at stake, no family to fear for, but descending from the 
contemplation of wisdom, and abandoning the ornaments 
of fancy, he humanely undertook the task of conveying 
duty and instruction to the lowest classes of the people. 

* Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1845, vol. lxxx., p. 537. 

12 



116 



GRATTAN — FATHER O'LEARY. 



If I did not know him to be a Christian clergyman, I 
should suppose him by his works to be a philosopher of 
the Augustan age." * Where is such a character to be 
found now amongst the Irish priesthood ? Speaking of his 
own class in his own times, " The Catholic clergy," said 
O'Leary, " have birth and honour, which neither revolu- 
tions nor penal laws can affect."*}* This was the clergy that 

* Grattan's Life and Speeches, by his Son. 

f Arthur O'Leary, better known as Father O'Leary, was bora 
in the west of the county of Cork in 1729, and educated at St. 
Malos in France. Mr. Moore,in his Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 
tells us, "that the able Catholic divine, O'Leary, on entering the 
doors of the Military Congress, was received with the full salute 
of rested arms by the volunteers," who were almost all Pro- 
testants, vol. i., p. 191 . We are assured by the son of Mr. Grattan, 
in his Memoirs of his Father, that O'Leary refused the most 
urgent offers of a pension for his eminent services from Mr. Pitt, 
when at the head of the Government of England. He was re- 
markable as well for his wit as for his writings, and mixed in 
high society. "Father O'Leary," said Mr. Curran to him, "if 
you had the keys of heaven, would you not let me in f " It 
would be better for you," replied the friar, " that I had the keys 
of the other place, for then I could let you out." He had been 
engaged in a controversy with Dr. Woodward Bishop of Cloyne, 
on the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which made great noise at 
the time, and in which the wit of the friar was at least apparent — 
" You cannot," said he to the bishop, " hate a Catholic for his 
speculative creed. His belief in the real presence affects you no 
more, than if he believed Berenice's tresses were changed into a 
comet. Nor are we much concerned whether, in that immensity 
beyond the grave, there may be an intermediate space between 
the two extremes of complete happiness and complete misery — 
a place where the soul atones for venal lapses, and pays off a part 
of the debts it has contracted here. However clamorous a 
mitred divine may be about a Popish purgatory, he may go further 
and fare worse. Good sense and the general good of society are 
restoring to unhappy mortals the unalienable charter which school 
divinity had usurped — the choice of the religion they thought best — 
and the 'privilege of being accountable to God alone for their 
speculative tenets. We look upon any person who would preach or 



FIRST CONSUL — NAPOLEON — EMPEROR. 117 



survived both — this was the clergy we present in strong 
contrast with that priesthood, who have pretensions neither 
to birth nor honour. 

The First Consul had reconquered Italy, and laid 
Austria prostrate at the feet of France — that clergy then 
beheld the succeeding Pope Pius VII., his spiritual 
lustre dimmed — humbled beneath indignities, forced from 
Rome to Paris- — a separation unheard of for ten centuries, 
to minister at the Imperial coronation of a military 
adventurer — a ceremony in which the pontiff was a cipher. 
Napoleon grasped the crown with his own hands, and 
afterwards seized the sword as his sceptre. They witnessed 

practise contrary doctrine as an agitator indeed ; and an agitating 
bishop is as obnoxious a character to us as an agitating priest or 
friar can be." O'Leary's Defence, p. 69. It would be difficult to 
find such sentiments entertained by a Maynooth priest now, and 
equally difficult to find an English Protestant author publishing 
a panegyric on one of that body, as Mr. Pratt did, who introduced 
O'Leary under the name of Father Arthur into his novel of 
" Family Secrets." " Such was the blameless priest who is known 
to have long considered himself as an advocate pleading for the 
Protestant in France — for the Jew in Lisbon — for the Catholic in 
Ireland ; the patriot whose loyalty was sound — the philanthropist 
who, clothing humanity in the robes of eloquence, employed his 
voice and pen in exhorting mankind to lay aside religious dis- 
tinctions, since it was equal to the Israelite released from bondage 
whether his temple was built by Solomon or Cyrus, provided he 
had liberty to pray unmolested and sleep under his own vine." 
O'Leary died at No. 45 Great Portland- street, London, on the 
8th of January 1802, aged 72 years, and was buried in St.Pancras 
churchyard, where a Protestant peer, the Earl of Moira, after- 
wards Governor-General of India, to testify his respect for virtue, 
and his admiration of genius, erected a monument to his memory. 
England's Life of Arthur O'Leary, London, Longman and Co., 
1822. O'Leary was a Franciscan friar, and was almost directly 
succeeded by Theobald Mathew, a clergyman equally moderate 
and rational in his political views, who was styled by Mr. Shiel, 
" The Evangelist of Temperance !" 



118 EXCOMMUNICATION — KING OF ROME — FONTAINEBLEAU. 

the papal bull of excommunication fulminated by that 
Pope on the 1 1th of June 1809, against Napoleon — scoffed 
at by the Imperial despot, and the spoils of ancient art, 
and papal splendour transferred from Italy, with the 
maledictions of the church to France. They had seen 
that Pope deposed, his territorial dominions assigned by 
an edict of the 17th of February 1810 to Imperial Gaul — 
and the only son of the modern Attila, whom a strange 
and posthumous destiny now unexpectedly raises from 
an early and obscure grave into a niche in the gallery of 
dynastic history, under the name of Napoleon II., created 
by his father at his birth — King of Rome. They had 
also beheld the same reverend head of their Church, aged, 
infirm, but unyielding, dragged again a captive to France, 
— Fontainebleau converted into the prison of the pontiff. — 
At Fontainebleau Louis XIV. signed the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes. — At Fontainebleau Pius VII. laid down 
his tiara. " Where/' said Napoleon to Cardinal Fesch, 
" does the obstinate old man want me to send him ?" 
" Perhaps," replied the other, " to heaven/' — At Fontaine- 
bleau Napoleon afterwards signed his abdication, and 
abandoned his throne. 

Many of that clergy survived to see that crown so 
grasped, torn from the brow of its usurper — that sceptre 
broken — that conqueror of many potentates — himself a 
supplicant for shelter at the feet of England — 

" Who would have soared to such a height 1 
To set in such a starless night r 

that Pope, restored by her victories, on the 24th of May, 
1814, re-entering the Holy City to reascend his humble 
throne — still the seat of his successor. 

After the triumph of Waterloo, at the dictation of 
England, France restored to Rome the spoils of imperial 



WATERLOO — WORKS OF ART — CA3T0VA — ROME. 119 



pillage. The statues, and works of art, were packed up 
for restitution by British soldiers at Paris, and, notwith- 
standing the idle terrors of a "praemunire," a draft for 
10,0007. on the treasury of England, in favour of the 
Pope, enabled Pius VII. to meet the expense of trans- 
mitting back to his capital the unrivalled treasures of 
antiquity, for the future adornment of modern Rome. A 
memorial from all the European artists, then resident 
there, claimed for the Eternal City the restoration of the 
works which had adorned Italy. Canova, impassioned 
for the arts and city of his choice, hastened to Paris, 
which had been then styled the miniature metropolis of 
the world, to superintend the removal. The "Trans- 
figuration of Raphael/' the " Last Communion of St. 
Jerome," resumed their places in the halls of the Vatican ; 
and the " Apollo" and the " Laocoon" again adorned 
the precincts of St. Peter's.* 

* History of Europe, by Sir A. Alison, vol. xiv., p. 94. 

The restored government of Louis XVIII., through Prince 
Talleyrand, strongly protested against the removal, as an infrac- 
tion of the military convention under which the city of Paris 
had capitulated, and which provided for the protection of all 
French property. The Duke of Wellington was inflexible, and 
peremptory in his directions for the removal of the statues and 
pictures from the museum of the Louvre. In a despatch to 
Lord Castlereagh, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 
dated Paris, 23rd of September 1815, the Duke, in his usual 
clear and decided tone, stated his reasons : — " The feeling of the 
French people upon this subject must be one of vanity only. 
It must be a desire to retain the specimens of the arts, not 
because Paris is the fittest depository for them, as upon that 
subject artists, connoisseurs, and all who have written upon it, 
agree that the whole ought to be removed to their ancient seat ; 
but because they were obtained by military concessions, of 
which they are the trophies. The same feelings which induce 
the people of France to wish to retain the pictures and statues 
of other nations, would naturally induce other nations to wish, 



120 



POPE PIUS VII. — ENGLAND— FRANCE. 



Pius VII. had seen much — had suffered more ; aud 
whatever may have been the infirmities and weak- 
nesses of age, his knowledge of events, during a life of 
lengthened purity, of multiplied sorrows, inspired him 
with sentiments of attachment to England* — reliance on 
her honour, — distrust of France — abhorrence of her faith- 
lessness. 

The lives and characters of the two successive pontiffs 
who had been steeped in the bitter waters of persecution, 
by their cruel task-masters, the French, — still further 
illustrate the theory, — that the magic influence of solar 
light is not more assuredly requisite to call forth the out- 
lines of human beauty on the polished plate, which has been 
rendered sensitive by the touch of science ; than adver- 
sity is essential to develop and display, in the brightest 
and purest instances of pious excellence, the virtues of 
sacerdotal perfection. We cannot avoid lamenting with 

. now that success is on their side, that the property should be 
returned to the rightful owners, and the Allied Sovereigns must 
feel a desire to gratify them. It is, besides, on many accounts 
desirable, as well for their own happiness as for that of the 
world, that the people of France, if they do not really feel that 
Europe is too strong for them, should be made sensible of it ; 
and that whatever may be the extent, at any time, of their 
momentary and partial success against any one, or any number 
of individual powers, the day of retribution must come. Not 
only, then, would it, in my opinion, be unjust in the Sovereigns 
to gratify the people of France on this subject at the expense 
of their own people, but the sacrifice they would make would be 
impolitic, as it would deprive them of the opportunity of giving 
the people of France a great moral lesson." — Despatches of the 
Duke of Wellington, by Garwood, vol. xii., pp. 645, 646. 

* Splendid portraits of Pius VII. and of his minister, Cardinal 
Consalvi, adorn the Waterloo Room in the royal palace at 
Windsor. They were painted by the celebrated Sir Thomas 
Lawrence, who was sent by the Prince Regent, afterwards 
George IV., to Rome for the purpose. 



INQUISITION — MODERN ROME. 



121 



Burke, that the pontificates of those prelates should have 
been allowed to pass away without lifting the dark and 
impenetrable veil, which still mysteriously enshrouds and 
conceals the Court of Rome from the political eye of 
England, favouring the suspicions and exciting the 
jealousies of both ; and that men were not permitted, by 
close observation, to discern and trace, in the free and in- 
tellectual superiority of the one, the blemishes and imper- 
fections of the other. Pius VII., after his libera- 
tion and return to Rome, reformed the Inquisition, 
abolished the use of torture in all its tribunals, re- 
modelled its procedure, made its proceedings public, and 
decreed that, in all trials for heresy, the accused should 
be confronted with the accuser in the presence of the 
judges. In reversing the cruel sentence of death, which 
the Inquisition had passed against a relapsed Jew, he 
used the following expressions : — " The Divine law is not 
of the same nature as that of man, but a law of persuasion 
and gentleness. Persecution, exile, and imprisonment 
are^suitable only to false prophets, and the apostles of 
false doctrines."* The very reforms he introduced proved 
the atrocities of the system ; alas ! again attempted to be 
revived in all their pristine horrors ! Pius, if he had the 
power, would probably have ameliorated and mitigated 
still more the ferocity of priestly jurisprudence ; for we 
read in Farini, the historian of modern Rome, " that there 
was in that prince the majesty of all on earth, most ex- 
alted and revered, a sanctity of mind corresponding with 
his name and his office, and the crown of a martyr 

* Notes to Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. xii. 
p. 175. 



122 CLERICAL ASCENDENCY — TUSCANY — ITALY. 



more bright than mere glory."* This author, the apolo- 
gist of Pius IX. and of papal dominion, admits, " that 
on the return of Pope Pius VII., the clerical party 
came back to power with the ideas it had when it fell, 
and with passions not tempered, but inflamed, by 
calamity. At Rome, although Cardinal Consalvi tried to 
check it, the retrograde movement tended towards those 
methods of administration, of legislation and policy, which 
reflected the likeness of the middle ages. When the 
devout pontiff gave up his soul to God, on the 20th of 
August 1823, the spirit of party was corroding the bonds 
of society, and the pontifical government had little of love 
at home, or of respect abroad." -f" From the period of the 
death of Pius, from the subsequent ascendency of that 
clerical party, may we fear be traced the recantation by 
the papal see of the principles he inculcated ; the 
revival of that hideous spirit of persecution which, while 
it crowds the dungeons by its terrific tyranny, — enchains 
human intellect, debases human nature, and, with its 
pestilential breath, poisons and paralyzes the energies of 
man, in the Tuscan and other states of Italy. 

We have seen in France republicanism again rise from 
the ashes of constitutional monarchy, to become the 
assassin of Roman liberty ; a French army bestride the 
Roman people to subjugate them to papal imbecility — 
French soldiers degraded into papal police — the shrine 
and ceremonies of St. Peter's permitted to be seen only 
through the glittering steel of French bayonets. Although 

* The Roman State from 1815 to 1850, by Luigi Carlo Farini, 
translated from the Italian by the Right Honourable W. E. Glad- 
stone, M.P. John Murray ; London, 1851. 

f The Roman State, vol. i., p. 5. 



FRANCE —REVIVAL OF IMPERIAL DYNASTY. 123 

vaulting ambition has again made the chair of the Pontiff 
a stepping-stool to power, those Catholics must study the 
annals of past events with eyes of illusion, who can hope 
from the restoration of the dynasty of the French Empire, 
disinterested attachment to spiritual purity — high-born 
devotion to religious freedom — chivalrous protection to 
papal authority. Those who study the philosophy of history 
may, perhaps, venture to discern, as the mantle of time 
shall unfold itself, England again reassuming her former 
attitude — mediating for the liberties of Italy, enforcing 
that mediation — as the protectress at the same time, — of 
spiritual papacy, and of Roman freedom. 

The early relaxations of the penal code were not effected 
without repeated supplicatory appeals to the legislature. 
The first Catholic Committee was formed to direct those 
appeals in 1756 ; the first step of the laity towards suc- 
cess was to sever themselves from the clergy. J The 
clergy, who had studied humility in the school of adver- 
sity, were passive spectators ; they gave to the cause all 
that any priesthood ought to give, all that was required of 
them, all that was of value— their prayers. Catholic re- 
lief, immediate and entire, was Catholic expectation at 
the Union. The hopes of speedy admission were deferred 
by years of continued exclusion ; and, during those years, 
the claims of the Catholics were the quicksands on which 
ministries went to pieces. Ireland appeared as a petitioner 
year after year at the bar of the imperial legislature ; 
every session brought its anniversary discussion ; within 
the walls of Parliament — rhetorical display — party antago- 
nism, — excitement, dissension, and disappointment — with- 
out. Annual debates, but successive reiterations of argu- 
ments repeatedly advanced — repeatedly answered. While 

* Plowden's Ireland. 



124 



CATHOLIC EXCLUSION. 



Catholic demagogues idly brandished the terror of France; 
the continuance of the war was calmly made a ground for 
postponement : and the implied obedience of the priest- 
hood to the Pope, then a vassal of Napoleon, furnished 
the pretext. 

To Protestant ascendency were strongly but strangely 
attributed all the political evils of Ireland, although those 
evils have multiplied tenfold since its extinction. States- 
men admitted that if the question was, whether the reli- 
gion throughout the empire should be Protestant, then by 
all means Protestant let it be ; but Catholics there were, 
and Catholics there would remain. The statutes against 
recusancy had been found futile, and had been suffered 
to expire ; and as extirpation was impossible, conciliation 
was expedient. Eligibility was put forward as the com- 
mon-law right of all ; disability declared not to be tolera- 
tion; ignominious exclusions outrages on laws human 
and divine. Desire for political privileges, ambition of 
sectarian aggrandizement, were loudly proclaimed to be 
distinct passions. The Catholics sought the enjoyment of 
those privileges, not in virtue of their religion, but in 
spite of it. Their claims were enforced not to entitle 
them to power, but to obtain a declaration that difference 
of religion should not preclude them from it. It was 
politically unjust, that a conscientious disagreement should 
disqualify those, who had never belonged to, and had 
never deserted the Establishment — those, who had for- 
feited their privileges by adherence to the common ances- 
tral faith of all. A free citizen, it was said, had no right 
to found his allegiance on his theology ; to confound 
politics with polemics ; to associate the expanded princi- 
ples of freedom with the dogmas of contracted divinity. 
The definition of the great Lord Somers was universally 



THEIR CLAIMS — PROFESSIONS. 



125 



adopted : — " Those who simply adhere to the Church of 
Rome are good Catholics ; those who adhere to the 
Court of Rome are Papists/' " I am," declared O'Con- 
nell, " sincerely a Catholic, but I am not a Papist. I deny 
the doctrine that the Pope has any temporal authority, 
directly or indirectly, in Ireland. We have all denied the 
authority on oath, and we would die to resist it."* To 
taunt the Catholics with papal infallibility as an article of 
of their faith — to urge it as a proof of their necessary 
subserviency to the determinations of the Roman see — 
evinced, it was argued, either a total absence of candour 
or a wilful ignorance of their doctrines. The Catholics 
insisted that their merits as citizens should be estimated 
without reference to their creed as Christians. In order 
to assert their title to be treated as freemen, they indig- 
nantly disclaimed any political subserviency to Rome. 
To the British Crown they professed an indivisible alle- 
giance. The removal of exasperating distinctions would, 
they proclaimed, render impossible the creation of arti- 
ficial causes of discontent. The administration of equal 
laws, by Catholic judges, would inevitably supersede that 
barbarous and bloody code emanating " from the wild 
justice of revenge."f Years of tranquillized submission 
were triumphantly appealed to, as obliterating from his- 
toric memory centuries of discontented and insurrec- 
tionary turbulence. When admitted into the imperial 
copartnership, with a community of honours a commu- 
nity of interests was anticipated and predicted. Such 
was the language of the Catholics and their advocates. 

* In 1814. Memoirs and Speeches, by his Son, John O'Connell 
vol. h\, p. 178. 

f Sheil adopted the phrase from Bacon. 



126 THEIR OPPONENTS. 

Their opponents, on the other hand, asserted that the 
Catholics were unfitted to receive freedom — that if they 
obtained liberty they would lose it. Those who had 
never been known to display their piety within the 
church — exhibited their "No popery" without, — by sup- 
porting the church as its buttresses. General alarm was ex- 
cited by historic traditions and reminiscences of the former 
abuses of Catholicity. The frightful phantoms of bloody 
times again scared the consciences and minds of men. 
Ancient policy was evoked as the opponent of innovating 
speculation. The antiquated guardians of the constitu- 
tion entrenched themselves behind extravagant and ex- 
ploded doctrines, raked up from the musty records of 
forgotten controversy. The corporations had been in 
early times established by the Norman English as 
nurseries of civilization ; they afterwards became Pro- 
testant garrisons of occupation in Ireland. Having been 
rendered exclusive foundations, they became the strongest 
pillars of intolerant ascendency. Refined distinctions 
were taken between the fullest toleration and the acquisi- 
tion of political power. The surest grounds relied on to 
justify the anticipations of the future, was the experience 
of the past. It was strongly insisted, and as strongly 
denied, that if his creed and his country were thrown into 
the scales, and the Catholic compelled to decide between 
them, he must decide for his creed and against his 
country. The high authority of Locke was relied on, 
" What do these and the like doctrines signify, but that 
they (the Catholics) may and are ready upon any occa- 
sion to seize the government and possess themselves of 
the estates and fortunes of their fellow-subjects, and that 
they only ask leave to be tolerated by the magistrates so 



THEIR APPREHENSIONS. 



127 



long, until they find themselves strong enough to effect 
it?"* It was confidently predicted that, if gradual ap- 
proaches were permitted, concessions would be extorted 
from the weakness of the legislature, which its wisdom 
would be desirous to withhold. When all untenable 
positions, obstinately defended, were ultimately aban- 
doned, — apprehension of the priesthood, to whose fiery 
intemperance the origin of the penal laws was traced, and 
to whom alternations of severity and indulgence had been 
ever found unsuited, still remained the impassable barrier 
to concession. Sir Robert, then Mr. Secretary Peel, met 
the question fairly : — " If," said he, " the Catholics be- 
lieve our church to be intrusive, to have usurped the 
temporalities which it possesses, will they not aspire to 
the establishment of their church in all its ancient splen- 
dour? Arguing from the motives by which men are 
actuated, is not the policy questionable of admitting those 
who have views hostile to the religious establishments of 
the State to the capacity of legislating for the interests of 
those establishments, and the power of directing the go- 
vernment of which those establishments form so essential 
a part ? The continuance of those bars which prevent the 
acquisition of political power by their opponents, are 
necessary for the maintenance of the constitution and the 
interests of the Established Church." Such was the rea- 
soning of Peel — prudent and prophetic. 

The very insinuation of these apprehensions roused the 
general indignation of the Catholics. Disdaining a State 
exaltation for their own church, they recoiled at the pro- 
fanation of laying unhallowed hands upon that of their 
expectant benefactors. They realized the definition of 
Bolingbroke, that gratitude is the expectation of favours 
* Locke on Toleration. Works, vol. iv., p. 47. 



128 



CATHOLIC PLEDGES. 



to be conferred. They proclaimed that civilization could 
not be rolled back to the days of the Crusaders — that their 
clergy were no longer that priesthood, before whom in the 
dark ages civil liberty was impotent and mute. Assuming 
the existence of clerical influence, — the surest mode of 
withdrawing the laity from its operation was — to prevent 
their passions, irritated by exclusion, from being worked 
on by it. Disaffection was never contagious, unless when 
it met with discontent. Admit, said they, but the Catho- 
lics into the imperial copartnership — make them, instead 
of angry slaves, contented citizens — you create in the 
Catholic priests, a community of interest with the Pro- 
testant landlord t© uphold the ancient institutions of the 
State ; their reconciliation would be immediate — unquali- 
fied — complete. In claiming their own manumission, the 
Catholic laity, to remove the alarming impediment of 
the priesthood, then tendered themselves as bondsmen for 
the future propriety of the clergy — an obligation of 
honour they are bound in duty to observe. It would 
seem, too, that the abandonment of ancient — of obsolete 
doctrines — the adoption of opinions more modern, more 
moderate, more reasonable, more consonant to the pro- 
gressive advance of mental civilization, by the clergy — then 
perhaps justified the lay members in their professions. 

There appeared during the struggle for emancipation, 
issuing from the Vatican, a work of the highest authority, 
announcing to the Christian world the then altered tone of 
opinion in the papacy. The " History of the Cardinals," 
by the Abbe Roy, prothonotary to the Pope, sanctioned by 
the express breve of Pius VII., affixed to its title-page, 
thus deplores the lamentable effects of papal usurpation :— 
i 4 Rome has been the sport of time and events, and has 
passed through all the gradations of greatness and decline. 



ABBE" ROY — PAPAL PRETENSIONS. 129 

Like to the flow and reflow of the ocean, it has sometimes 
transgressed its bounds, sometimes retired within its 
limits — aspiring to the dominion of the universe, it be- 
came its own destroyer, and exhibits the saddest example 
of the ravages of fate. Loaded with riches, covered with 
honours, and proud of their possession, some papal sove- 
reigns dared perhaps to persuade themselves that the Holy 
See had temporal power over kings — that they were his 
vassals and tributaries — that he could dispose of their 
crowns according to his option, and release their subjects 
from fidelity/' ..." Pontifical authority passed as in- 
fallible, and sacerdotal power usurped civil legislation. 
All the members of the church, encouraged by the ambi- 
tion of their chiefs, claimed, each in his sphere, a portion 
of supreme power. Bishops, as proud of their riches as of 
their piety, while with the one hand they humbly balanced 
the incense-pot of the Levites, with the other brandished 
the glittering sword of the warrior. There were some 
bishops, who officiated pontifical ly with the badges of a 
warrior deposited near the Xamb without spot. The 
Bishop of Cahors has always the gloves and gauntlets on 
the altar. But ecclesiastical authority proves how true 
it is, that the highest point of haughty grandeur is often 
the nearest approach to humiliation. Ecclesiastical per- 
sons, although subject to a power independent of the 
king, in whose state they have been born and naturalized, 
continue, notwithstanding, to be subjects of that king ; 
they belonged to him before they belonged to the church, 
and the religious engagement which they contract is not 
valid, but in so much as it neither affects nor injures the 
first and national dependence." . . "A sovereign can, 
when necessary, reclaim the services of his ecclesiastical 
subjects ; and those ecclesiastics, by obedience to their. 

K 



130 CONNEXION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE. 



sovereign, fulfil the law of God. He who serves his king 
and country well must merit praise ; and the church, so 
much interested in the peace and happines of states, far 
from disapproving such conduct in ecclesiastics, will her- 
self applaud their choice." The opinions thus eloquently 
expressed, emanating from and sanctioned hy the autho- 
rity of the Papal See, may be accepted as the guide then 
furnished to its ecclesiastics by that church, whose disci- 
pline is obedience, whose boast is immutability. If these 
are the defined rules of duty and allegiance to a Catholic 
crown — in a Protestant state, where the laws concede 
everything to the Catholics — are not the Catholics doubly 
bound to concede something to the laws ? If the Catho- 
lics tendered, openly, voluntarily, such duty and allegiance 
to purchase civil rights, would it not be baser than poli- 
tical perfidy to render those rights thus acquired, accessory 
to the betrayal — the violation of that duty — that alle- 
giance ? 

The Catholics were not content with persuasive 
reasoning — eloquent declamation — solemn professions — 
they appealed to their petitions, in which the truth of the 
declarations there recorded was attested under their hands, 
by their honour as men, by their faith as Christians. The 
long and bitter exclusion they had endured from fidelity 
to obligations was appealed to, as the infallible witness of 
their sincerity. Burke had declared that " the connexion 
between Church and State was the foundation of the 
Constitution and was inseparable from it." The Catholics 
adopted that principle as the basis of their expostulations. 
The petition they presented to Parliament in 1805, 
during the war with Imperial France, contained the 
following passage : — 

" That they were bound and firmly pledged to defend, 



CATHOLIC PETITIONS — OATHS. 



131 



to the utmost of their power, the settlement and arrange- 
ment of property in this country, as established by the 
laws now in being. They disclaim, disallow, and solemnly 
abjure any intention to subvert the present Church 
establishment, for the purpose of substituting a Catholic 
establishment in its stead — that they will not exercise any 
privilege to which they are or may be entitled to disturb or 
weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government 
in Ireland : — that it is their decided opinion that the 
enemies of the British empire, who meditate the sub- 
jugation of Ireland, have no hope of success save in the 
disunion of its inhabitants. That they are anxious that a 
measure should be accomplished which will annihilate the 
principles of religious animosity, and animate all descrip- 
tions of subjects in an enthusiastic defence of the best 
constitution that has ever yet been established"* 

In the same year in which these noble sentiments 
emanated from the Catholics of Ireland, the combined 
fleets of France and Spain, again destined to assail the 
majesty of England by the invasion of Ireland, were 
annihilated by Nelson on the 21st of October 1805, at 
Trafalgar. With them perished the naval power of 
France — the perils of invasion during the war. It must 
be conceded that the transfusion of popular blood by the 
measures of reform, has not since rendered that constitu- 
tion less an object of public admiration. The oath 
prescribed by the Act of 1793, to be taken by a Roman 
Catholic, was in these words : — " I will not exercise any 
privilege to which I am or may be entitled, to disturb or 
weaken the Protestant religion and Protestant govern- 
ment in this kingdom." Certain casuists, ever anxious to 

* Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. v., p. 101. 

s K 2 



132 



CASUISTS — HYPOCRISY. 



entangle willing ignorance in the web of sophistry, affected 
to think that the crime should be against both — the religion 
and the government, in order to constitute the guilt of 
perjury. The same language used in the form of oath 
prescribed by the Act of 1795, which erected the elee- 
mosynary College of Maynooth, — to be taken by eccle- 
siastics educated within its walls, — furnishes to the pliant 
consciences of pious men — a convenient pretext for the 
same shameless evasion. Ecclesiastics not educated at 
Maynooth are permitted to exercise mere clerical func- 
tions without taking any oath of allegiance, and are thus 
at least relieved from the sin and scandal of such a 
subterfuge. In the oblation presented by the Catholics 
themselves to the legislature, are found the very words 
subsequently adopted into the Catholic oath in the Relief 
Bill of 18 29, and thus was the doubt, if it ever existed, 
removed in terms framed and proposed by the Catholics 
themselves. Hypocrisy is, according to the maxim of 
Rochefoucault, the tribute which vice pays to virtue : it 
is not credible that the high and honoured names, who thus 
appealed to the justice and generosity of England - could 
have muffled themselves in the cloak of deceit to stab 
the honour of their creed, and perhaps through the same 
wound the liberties of their country. 

The language of their petition in 1812 was still more 
precise — more emphatic — " And further we most explicitly 
declare, that we do not wish or seek in the remotest 
degree to injure or encroach upon the rights, privileges, 
immunities, possessions, or revenues appertaining to the 
bishops and clergy of the Protestant religion as by law 
established, or the church committed to their care, or to 
any of them." Again, in their petition of 1813, — " We 
abjure all temporal authority save that of our sovereign. 



ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 



133 



We acknowledge no civil tie save that of our constitution. 
Separating as we do our civil rights from our spiritual 
duties, we earnestly desire that they may not be con- 
founded ; — ' We render unto Caesar the things that are 
Caesar's, but we must also render unto God the things 
that are God's.' Our church could not descend to 
claim a State authority, nor do we ask for it a State 
aggrandizement ; its hopes, its powers, its pretensions are 
of another world." The apprehensions of Peel as to the 
rival ascendencies of church above church, were answered 
thus by the logical and enlightened mind of Woulfe, who 
afterwards became Chief Baron of Ireland. " By what 
name less odious than oppression could we stigmatize 
the offence the Catholics would be guilty of, if they 
attempted to deprive the established clergy of the tempo- 
ralities which they have purchased by the exercise of 
valuable interest — by the surrender of other pursuits — 
by the abandonment of the means of earning their bread 
in other walks ?"* The author of the Review of the 
Catholic question observes, " It is supposed, I know, that 
if emancipation were conceded to the Catholics in Ireland, 
that they would attempt to seize cn all the ecclesiastical 
dignities, lands, and livings, and divide them among their 
own clergy. No law, human or divine, would justify them 
in doing so, nor do thoughts of this kind ever enter their 
heads." t The preamble of all the bills proposed by 
Mr. Grattan — approved of by the Catholic leaders — was 
in those terms — " Whereas the United Protestant church 
of England and Ireland is established permanently and 
inviolably. And whereas it would tend to promote the 
interests of the same, and to strengthen the free constitu- 

* Letter to a Protestant, p. 41 . 

t Believed to have been by Charles Butler, p. 53. 



134 LORD PLUNKET — DUTY OF CATHOLIC GENTRY. 



lion of which that united church forms an essential 
part." * Lord Plunket, the only one of their illustrious 
advocates who still survives, declared — " That if ever 
the day should come — when Parliament should lay its 
hands upon the property of the Irish Established Church, 
or rob it of its rights, that the same moment would 
seal the doom of the Union, and terminate the connexion 
between the two countries." 

Extravagant notions of disturbing the inviolability of 
that church — of unsettling that free constitution — may 
never perhaps have floated across the minds of the well- 
educated — well-regulated Catholic laity : can the same 
be now said of the priests ? Of their ignorant and servile 
idolizers ? Men as rabid for change as were the 
hungry followers of Catiline. Intellectual liberty cannot . 
exist amongst those— who permit their priesthood to 
luxuriate in turbulent and anarchical tyranny — amongst 
those, who become the accessaries of their own degradation, 
by cowardly submission to a despotism which, in this free 
state, insolence could only assume, and ignorance alone 
endure. Is the present generation of Catholic gentry 
willing to stigmatize as false the professions of their 
fathers — whose untiring efforts achieved that freedom they 
now enjoy — to scandalize the time-honoured memories of 
the dead — to attaint their ancestors as posthumous traitors 
in their graves — to debase themselves and their sons, by the 
prostitution of their energies and their intellects to priestly 
domination? Those who would submit to be slaves to 
the dubious delegation of a power, foreign, remote, 
hostile, mysterious and designing — a power assuming 
authority from heaven to disturb earth, will soon become 
unworthy to remain the free citizens of a free common- 

* Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1825, vol. xii., p. 476. 



EVIDENCE OF CATHOLIC LEADERS AND PRELATES. 135 

wealth. " The liberty of a people," declared Henry 
Flood, " like the honour of a lady, is safest in their own 
keeping." The selection of priests to be the guardians of 
the liberties or honour of a nation — only secures the in- 
evitable violation of both. 

In 1825 the then professed opinions of the Catholics 
were more emphatically and solemnly recorded, in the 
testimony of their bishops and leaders before parliamentary 
committees. Mr O'Connell declared — "That the pro- 
pensity of the Catholic clergy is very much towards an 
ungratified submission to the law, and to the government 
whatever it might be. I am thoroughly convinced that the 
object of the Catholic clergy and laity of Ireland is sincerely 
and honestly to concur with the government, in every measure 
that shall increase the strength of the government in Ireland, 
so as to consolidate Ireland with England completely and 
in every beneficial aspeet." This was the language of a 
man who had himself endured the contumelies of exclu- 
sion — who had witnessed the devotion of advocates, the 
sacrifices of friends — who had seen national spirit pine 
under the disappointments of struggles painful and pro- 
tracted — struggles, in which the priesthood, conscious that 
their intrusion — their assumption of leadership would be 
signals of failure, had been wisely content to be wielded 
as mere instruments. The amiable and venerable Dr 
Murray, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, in 
answer to an inquiry from the Committee, " What parti- 
cular or general benefit would in your opinion be produced 
in Ireland by the admission of the Catholics to equal 
rights and privileges ?" replied — " I think there would 
be one universal feeling of gratitude and attachment to 
the State." The eloquent and enlightened Dr. Doyle, a 
Roman Catholic bishop, answered the same question thus, 



136 



THEIR DECLARATIONS. 



" I think that the general benefits would be incalculable : 
I am quite confident it would put an end to those religious 
heats and animosities which now prevail so generally." 
" I think," said he, " if emancipation were carried, that 
the whole Catholic population would consider their griev- 
ances at an end : I am also quite confident it would pro- 
duce in them a feeling of satisfaction — of confidence — of 
affection towards the government greater than has ever 
been experienced by any government. I am convinced 
in my soul, I never spoke with more sincerity ; I never 
spoke more from the fulness of my heart, than I do at the 
present moment, that if we were freed from the disabilities 
under which we labour, we would have no mind — no thought 
— no will but that which would lead us to incorporate fully 
and essentially with this great kingdom."* 

Such were the views of eminent and exalted Christians — 
calmly, deliberately given to the world — of men who 
would have seen themselves chained to the stake, rather 
than that imputed falsehood should pollute their lips. 
Such were the opinions of prelates now mouldering into 
dust, then speaking to posterity ; who little anticipated 
that their successors would betray or belie their profes- 
sions. By belying their truth those successors brand those 
professions with falsehood and infamy, as the prostrations 
of treacherous meanness. If those professions were 
sincere, chivalrous honour demands their fulfilment — if 
insincere, their insincerity furnishes a posthumous but 
triumphant justification to the obstinate and enduring 
pertinacity, with which the Catholic claims were for years 
resisted. Those claims, however, like the fabled giant of 
old, only acquired fresh vigour from every successive fall. 

* Evidence before Parliamentary Committees previously re- 
ferred to. 



BILL OF RIGHTS — WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 



137 



The Protestant gentry of Ireland at length, in the 
celebrated " Leinster Declaration," claiming for their 
countrymen a participation of their rights, assumed the 
dignified and generous attitude of mediators between the 
Catholics and their opponents, at the head of whom was 
the Crown ! 

The Bill of Rights, which consolidated Protestant 
supremacy as a fundamental principle, was styled by the 
great Lord Chatham " the Bible of the constitution." In 
front of the Banqueting House at Whitehall on the 30th 
of January 1649, Charles L, for the betrayal of the civil 
liberties of England, lost his head on the scaffold. In that 
same Banqueting House — William of Orange* his grand- 
son, on the 22nd of January 1 689, met the Convention — 
received the addresses of both Houses of Parliament, and 
subscribed the declaration of rights, which ordained " that 

* William Prince of Orange was the son of William the 
Stadtholder of Holland, who married the Princess Mary, the 
eldest daughter of Charles I. He took his title from the district 
and town of Orange, in the department of Vaucluse, in France ; 
before the revolution, a small principality in the nature of a 
palatinate, and the see of a bishop. In the eleventh century it 
had Courts of its own, and became a small independent state. 
The sovereignty was, in 1589, conferred on the House of Nassau 
by the Treaty of Vervins ; in 1678, by that of Nimeguen ; and, 
in 1697, by that of Ryswick. William, who succeeded his father 
in 1672, as Stadtholder and Prince of Orange, became King of 
England in 1689. At the close of the year 1713 it was ceded, 
by the Treaty of Utrecht, to the House of Bourbon. Louis XV., 
in the same year, gave it to the Prince of Conti. In 1714 it was 
annexed to the government of Dauphiny, in the generality and 
intcndancy of Grenoble and Montelimart. It was anciently 
exempt from the general taxes of the kingdom, but is now, of 
course, an integral portion of the French empire. Probably but 
few of the Orangemen of the present day are aware that a name, 
still the test of ultra-protestantism, was derived from an obscure 
district and town in the south of Catholic France ! 



138 



COKONATIOX OATH— SHEIL. 



no foreign prince or potentate had or ought to have any 
jurisdiction within this realm/' The coronation oath was 
designated hy the equally great Lord Somers — one of the 
founders of the revolution — the second Magna Charta of 
England. The coronation oath remained to the last a bar 
to the Catholics, and those who clamoured for freedom of 
conscience to all — denied it to the King. 

Foremost among the Catholics of that day, was a man 
of gentle birth, high intellectual gifts thrown into full 
relief by academic culture, whose young heart and ardent 
aspirations rose rebel against the abasement he endured ; 
while with poetic fervour he adorned the tragic drama of 
England, with political fervour, equally intense, he flung 
himself into the arena of agitation in Ireland. " It was,'' 
said Sheil, " from the penal code that all the power of 
the agitators was derived. We draw our political in- 
fluence from those passions which the system of disqualifi- 
cation has prepared, and which it requires so little art to 
kindle. The agitators, the incendiaries, or whatever else 
they please to term us, would be flung into instantaneous 
insignificance, and be not only deprived of the faculty, 
but be cured of the inclination of rousing the passions of 
the people. Catholic emancipation will sentence every 
demagogue to political annihilation." Catholic emanci- 
pation opened to that brilliant orator the avenues to 
honour. He sunk into an early grave, a member of the 
Privy Council of England, British Minister at the Court 
of Tuscany. While there, he was fortunately spared the 
disgrace, the disgust, of witnessing such scenes as the im- 
prisonment of the Madiai. 

Having captivated their warm temperament, and won 
his own countrymen by the brilliancy of his diction, the 
exuberance of his imagination, the vivid splendour of his 



PEiSHSTENDEi^ HEATH. 



139 



rhetoric, Sheil carried the war into the citadel of hosti- 
lity — the heart of England. He thus addressed the men 
of Kent at Pennenden Heath in 1827 : — 

" We have," said he, " power already, the power to do 
mischief ; give us that of doing good. Disarray us ; dis- 
solve us ; break up our confederation ; take from the law, 
the great conspirator, its combining and organizing quality, 
and we shall no longer be united by the bad chain of 
slavery, but by the natural bonds of allegiance and con- 
tent. You fear our possible influence in the House of 
Commons. Catholics without, we should be citizens within 
it. It has been sometimes insisted that we aim at the 
political exaltation of our church, upon the ruins of the 
Establishment. Never was there a more unfounded impu- 
tation. The whole body of the Irish Catholics look upon a 
wealthy priesthood with abhorrence. They do not desire that 
their bishops should be invested with pontifical gorgeousness. 
The Catholics of Ireland know that if their clergy were 
endowed with the wealth of the Establishment, they would 
become a profligate corporation, pampered with luxury, 
swelling with sacerdotal pride, and presenting in their lives 
a monstrous contrast with that simplicity and that poverty, 
of which, they are now as well the practisers as the teachers. 
I speak the sentiments of the whole body of my country- 
men, when I solemnly and emphatically reiterate my asse- 
veration, that there is nothing which the Roman Catholics 
would regard with more abhorrence, than the transfer of 
the revenues of the Establishment to a clergy, who owe 
their virtues to their poverty, the attachment of the 
people to their dignified dependence." 

By such eloquence, by such representations, by such 



140 CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION — EMANCIPATION. 



professions, by such expostulations — was emancipation won. 
The Catholic, who had risen from the outlaw to the alien, 
rose thus to be a citizen. 

Before entertaining the measure which ultimately 
passed, it was declared to be due to the dignity of the 
Legislature, that the Catholic Association — the focus of 
sedition — should cease to exist, and it was accordingly 
suppressed. The measure of emancipation, while it ad- 
mitted that from Protestant ascendency the royal line 
derived its title to the throne, preserved the perpetuation 
of Protestantism in the pageant of a Protestant Viceroy. 
While it committed the conscience of the King to a Pro- 
testant Lord Chancellor, it enabled a bigoted devotee of 
Rome to enter the royal presence as Prime Minister, and 
become Viceroy over the Crown. While it reversed the 
attainder passed by the wisdom of our ancestors against 
popery, it required from the Catholic the security of an 
oath, which it was predicted he would not keep. It was 
insisted that if the oath would be inefficient— it was im- 
moral to present it as a temptation to perjury; and 
remembering the casuistry of Jesuits, that " oaths were but 
words, and words were wind," it was anticipated, that its 
obligation would only excite a perfidious and perpetual 
conflict between promises and principles, oaths and con- 
science. The measure was denounced as containing no 
control over the see of Rome or its bishops, and the 
flimsy protection it proposed, against the assumption by 
ecclesiastics of territorial titles, was ridiculed. Digni- 
taries nominated by the Pope were not to be permitted 
to hold British titles, but these titles, it was argued, 
might be acquired by means of a money medium, and 50/., 
in the shape of a pitiful penalty, would enable any Catholic 



PREDICTIONS— MR. SADLER. 



141 



prelate to sport one. The reasoning of Mr. Sadler, then 
member for Newark, on the 27th of March 1829, was 
singularly prophetic : — 

" When a number of Roman Catholics shall have 
become seated in this House, that they shall not feel dis- 
posed to lessen the influence of, and finally to destroy, a 
church which they conscientiously abhor, is absurd. That 
they should not make common cause for similar purposes 
with other parties inspired by similar views and feelings, 
is impossible ; and though I have heard honourable mem- 
bers inveigh strongly against the supposition, the sure 
operation of adequate motives will bring about this union, 
and will direct its energies and its efforts against the 
common object of hostility — the Establishment. Much, 
indeed, has been said about the weakness of such a party 
in point of numbers ; but a party acting invariably in 
unison on this point will ultimately carry it, and with it 
all others of vital importance. They will form the nucleus 
of a growing party, to whom the measures of the Crown 
must always he rendered palatable, and who, consequently , 
will so far dictate the future policy of the country. Such 
has been the case in past times. The most important events 
that have occurred in our history, have been carried by far 
smaller majorities than those could form, acting together, 
and consequently holding the balance between the two dif- 
ferent parties of the State. N eed I instance the Revolu- 
tion and the Act of Settlement? deliverances which, if 
they could have been accomplished at all, could have 
been secured only by wading to the liberties of England 
through seas of blood, had not popery been expelled from 
the Legislature of the country." * 

* Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xx., p. 1163. 



142 



CATHOLIC GRATITUDE. 



The same reasoning thus used to exclude the Catholics 
would now apply to exclude the Jews ; and if the penal 
laws were ever just, it was argued as a conclusion equally 
applicable to both, that justice never changes, although 
policy may. Experience, however, was despised, admoni- 
tions disregarded — the pliancy of Peel yielded ; the de- 
cision of Wellington, ever triumphant, prevailed ; — the 
sensitive conscience of George IV. ratified the charter 
of Catholic Emancipation. 

The capabilities of the constitution were, in the ampli- 
tude of its liberality, exhausted. The emancipated 
Catholics were not, like the Israelites, selecting and set- 
tling in a new country ; they found themselves suddenly 
elevated to the position of those around them ; members 
of a mighty empire, portions of a vast community, 
with settled laws, ancient institutions, perfect liberty, 
and they embraced them all. Mr. Sheil afterwards 
proclaimed in Parliament — " Ireland stands as erect as 
if she had never stooped ; although she had once bowed 
her forehead to the earth, every mark and trace of her 
prostration have been effaced." Amidst the exultations 
of national triumph, emancipation was received and 
acknowledged by national gratitude. Not to be exceeded 
in, their manifestations of delight by any, the Roman 
Catholic prelates of Ireland, in synod assembled, declared, 
" that the great boon had become the more acceptable to 
their country, because amongst the counsellors of the 
Crown there appeared conspicuous the most distinguished 
of Ireland's own sons, a hero and a legislator — a man 
selected by the Almighty to break the rod which had 
scourged Europe. A man raised up by Providence to 
confirm thrones and establish altars, to direct the coun- 
cils of England at a crisis the most difficult, and to 



CATHOLIC PRELATES — WELLINGTON. 



143 



staunch the blood and heal the wounds of the country that 
gave him birth." With such acknowledgments confer- 
ring honour alike on both, did the Catholic prelates of 
that day tender to the hero who, full of years and covered 
with honours, has just descended into the grave, — 
the proud and thrilling consciousness of having deserved 
and obtained the everlasting gratitude of the Irish people, 
a triumph that in the hearts of their posterity, ought to 
survive even his victories. With such thanksgivings — was 
the liberation of their common country hailed as the muni- 
ficent endowment of freedom. 



144 



THE WINGS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Contemporaneous with the passing of the Emancipation 
Act — two other distinct measures had been contemplated, 
under the appellation of " the wings." One only became 
law — that passed for the extinction of the franchise con- 
ferred by the Act of 1793 on the peasantry. During the 
more recent periods of the protracted struggle, the 
Catholic clergy naturally allied with the Catholic gentry 
for a national object, superadded their influence, and the 
forty-shilling freeholders, " those broken tools " they 
afterwards "threw away," were weapons wielded un- 
scrupulously by both. The frightful state of civil society 
then prevailing, was described by Sheil at the great 
Munster meeting : — " What," said he, " has Government 
to dread from our resentment in peace ? An answer is 
supplied by what we actually behold. Does not a 
tremendous organization extend over the whole island? 
Have not all the national bonds by which men are tied 
together been broken and burst asunder? Are not alt 
the relations of society which exist elsewhere gone ? has 
not property lost its influence ? has not rank been stripped 
of the respect which ought to belong to it ? and has not an 
internal government grown up, which, gradually super- 
seding the established authorities, has armed itself with a 
complete dominion? Is it nothing that the clergy are 
alienated from the State, and that the Catholic gentry, 



VIOLENCE AND FAITHLESSNESS OF THE LEADERS. 145 

and peasantry, and priesthood are all combined in one 
vast confederacy ?" Seduced from the pious seclusion of 
peaceful life, in ceasing to be exclusively Christian 
pastors, the priests did not, unfortunately, become better 
citizens. If a political gathering was required for 
deliberation amidst the declamation of incendiaries, the 
saintly shepherds soon assembled their flocks. If freedom 
of election was to be overawed by turbulent intimidation, 
the spiritual comforters were suddenly metamorphosed 
into partizan leaders, and marshalling their penitents in 
battle array, the pious men led the van. By such an 
alliance— then perhaps (if ever) just — the Clare election — 
the crisis of the emancipation fever — was carried. The 
low scale of tenure necessarily created a low class of 
electors ; — in order to rescue them as well from the tempt- 
ations of corruption, as from the equally coercing blandish- 
ments of priestly interference, it was stipulated and 
determined — that with the acquisition of freedom by the 
Catholic gentry, the privilege of the Catholic peasant 
should cease. On the announcement of the intention, 
Mr. O'Connell, who had previously, in his evidence in 
1826, called them "part of the live-stock of an estate," 
proclaimed in the Association, " that if any man dared to 
bring in a bill for the disfranchisement of the forty- 
shilling freeholders, the people ought to rebel. If any 
attempt were made to take from them the franchise 
vested in them by the constitution, he should conceive it 
just to resist that attempt with force, and in such resist- 
ance he would be ready to perish in the field or onthe 
scaffold." . . . . " We would rather," exclaimed 
Mr. Sheil, " submit for ever to the pressure of the par- 
ricidal code, which crushed our fathers to the grave, than 
assent to this robbery of a generous peasantry." Notvvith- 

L 



146 STATE PROVISION FOR PRIESTHOOD. 



standing such declarations, the cottage of the peasant was 
robbed of its long-enjoyed privilege, to add fresh power 
and splendour to the Catholic aristocrat. The spontaneous 
acceptance of the two concurrent measures furnishes 
another instance of the faithlessness of public professions ; 
and the Catholic leaders, amidst the acclamations of the 
priests, rushed into the temple of the constitution over 
the dead bodies of those, who had lifted them into power, — 
who by their fidelity had acquired the designation of 
" The Virtuous Forties !" 

The other wing, by which a State provision from the 
nation was designed for the Catholic clergy, fell to the 
ground. Adam Smith had long previously remarked, 
" that the established clergy, reposing themselves upon 
their benefices, neglect to keep up the fervour of devo- 
tion in the great body of the people ; and, again, the in- 
dependent provision in many places made for dissenting 
teachers, seems very much to have abated the zeal and 
activity of those teachers." * The sceptical Hume had 
early vindicated a paid establishment — to purchase what he 
deemed the useful inactivity of the priesthood. He 
calculated that they would part with the temptation to 
acquire a dangerous dominion over the mind, when they 
became independent ; that pecuniary and indolent ease 
would subdue, if not stifle, the energies of religious devo- 
tion. The proposed measure had, probably from far 
different motives, received the unqualified approval of the 
Irish Catholic bishops assembled in conclave in Dublin, 
on the 17th, 18th, and 19th days of January 1799. They 
declared, " that an independent provision for the Roman 
Catholic clergy was not incompatible with their doctrine, 
discipline, or just principles, and ought to be thankfully 
* Wealth of Nations, book v. 



CONTEMPLATED CONTROL BY GOVERNMENT. 147 

accepted :" and certain members of the body were " com- 
missioned to transact all business with Government rela- 
tive to the proposal." With a view to induce the Govern- 
ment to be liberal in their terms, the bishops further 
resolved — "that in the appointment of the prelates of 
the Roman Catholic religion to vacant sees within this 
kingdom, such interference of Government as may enable 
it to be satisfied of the loyalty of the person appointed is 
just, and ought to be agreed to." That the Government 
were wisely determined to impose strict terms may be 
inferred from a letter from Lord Chancellor Clare, then 
in London, to Lord Castlereagh, dated the 16th of 
October 1798, in which he states,— " Mr. Pitt is fully 
sensible of the necessity of establishing some effectual 
civil control over the popish clergy, which he thinks will 
be best effected, by allowing very moderate stipends to 
them, and obliging every priest to take a license from the 
Crown for performing ecclesiastic functions, on pain of 
perpetual banishment, if he shall officiate without it. I 
have pressed upon him the necessity of immediate com- 
munication with the principal persons in Ireland; and I 
do believe he will desire their attendance." * Zeal for 
their religion would of course have reconciled the clergy 
to any legalized restriction ; and although the priests of 
the present day would probably deem an obligation to 
good behaviour the most cruel of persecutions, the 
suggestion of the great minister may not even now be 
altogether valueless. | 

* Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. i., p. 394. 

t Amongst the principal persons in Ireland were probably 
included the Roman Catholic bishops, who were afterwards in 
personal communication with Lord Castlereagh on the subject, 
and of course apprized of the determination of the Government. 
Dr. Troy, their Archbishop of Dublin, in a letter of the 9th of 

L 2 



148 



PROPOSED 



The adoption of the proposition was afterwards 
strenuously urged upon the people of England, by the 
celebrated Sydney Smith, in his ardent and effective 
advocacy of the Catholic claims. In allusion to the 

February 1799, to Sir John Cox Hippesley, informs him : — " Pre- 
vious to the separation of my brethren certain preliminary points 
were agreed to, and submitted by me to Lord Castlereagh, who ex- 
pressed his approbation of them, and probably sent them to the 
Duke of Portland. They are not to be made public until the 
business is concluded. Meantime Dr. O'Reilly, of Armagh, and 
Plunkett, of Meath, in conjunction with me, are authorized by 
our brethren to treat with Lord Castlereagh on the subject, 
when he may think it expedient to resume it." — Castlereagh 
Correspondence, vol. h\, p. 172. In the same volume is a letter 
from Dr. Moylan, the Eoman Catholic Bishop of Cork, to the 
same baronet, dated the 14th of September 1799, in which he 
states : — " The provision intended to be made for the Roman 
Catholic clergy of this kingdom is a measure worthy an enlight- 
ened government ; and we cannot but be thankful for it." — 
P. 401 . In the fourth volume of the same correspondence is a 
copy of the return made of their incomes, with a view to the 
proposed arrangement by the Catholic bishops and clergy. The 
highest income returned was that of Cork, 530?. a-year. That 
of the primate of Armagh, 400?. a-year ; that of the Archbishop 
of Dublin, 319?. 17s. 6c?. ; the lowest, that of Kilfenora, 100?. 
a-year. — Page 97. We cannot see, at least in these items, any 
ground for suspecting the pious fraud at which Mr. Theobald 
M'Kenna, a high Catholic authority, who wrote in 1805, seems to 
hint. " I have often understood that these returns were gene- 
rally given at the highest, in consequence of some ideas that 
prevailed, and some expectations that had been excited." It 
would seem from a letter of Dr. O'Bierne, Bishop of Meath, who 
was greatly in the confidence of the Government, that stipends 
on a reduced scale were contemplated. The rates intended were 
500?. a-year to each archbishop ; 300?. a-year to each bishop ; 
150?. a-year to each parish priest ; and 30?. a-year to each curate. 
— Bishop of Meath's Letter to Lord Castlereagh, vol. iii. p. 405. 
When the subject was renewed in 1815, the increased value 
which the bishops then seem to have set upon themselves was 
marvellous. In the same volume will be found the draft of a 



MEASURES. 



149 



meretricious coquetting of the priests with the subject, 
he observes, " I appeal to any human being, whether 
Ignatius Loyola himself, if he were a living blockhead 
instead of a dead saint, could withstand the temptation of 

bill, without, however, any date or name, with a scale set out in 
a schedule to it. It may, perhaps, be inferred that the bishops 
had it prepared for themselves ; for Dr. Everard, the Eoman 
Catholic bishop, thus pathetically signified his approval of it : — 
" Would to heaven that the intemperate passions were charmed 
into a suspension, that all parties might at length listen to the 
plain dictates of prudence and obvious duty !" This bill con- 
templated a complete change in the hierarchical system of the 
immutable church, constituting the Archbishop of Dublin 
Catholic Primate of all Ireland, at a salary of 2,000?. a-year ; 
making the Bishop of Cork Catholic Archbishop of Munster, at 
1,600?. a-year ; making a Catholic Archbishop of Connaught, at 
1,400?. a-year, and one of Ulster, at 1,200?. a-year. Probably Paul 
Cullen had some hopes of reviving this project, when he trans- 
ferred his astronomical acquirements from Armagh to Dublin. 
The schedule proposed the following general scheme : — 

£. 

Amount of annual provision for 32 archbishops 
and bishops, that of the bishops, varying 
from 900?. to 500?. annually - - 24,000 

Ditto for 36 Catholic deans, at salaries varying 

from 750?. to 250?. - 11,200 

500 parish priests, first class, annual income 

120?. each _____ 60,000 

500 parish priests, second class, annual income 

100?. each - 50,000 

500 parish priests, third class, annual income 

80?. each - - - - - 40,000 

1000 curates or coadjutors, 50?. each - - 50,000 

Total - - £235,200 
—vol. iv., pp. 425-433. 
It may be fairly inferred, that the above stipend would not 
satisfy the curates at present, when it is remembered, that one 
of them lately refused 70?. a-year for merely shriving and sanc- 
tifying the paupers in the workhouse at Mallow. 



150 



ANTICIPATED BENEFITS. 



pouncing from 100/. a-year in Sligo to 3001. a-year in 
Tipperary."* Mr O'Connell, in his evidence before a 
Parliamentary Committee in 1825, spoke in high com- 
mendation of the plan : — " I think," said he, " a wise 
Government would preserve the fidelity and the attachment 
of the Catholic clergy by what I call the golden link — by 
pecuniary provision. Our wish is, that the Government 
should have proper influence over them. The Catholic 
clergy would become in the nature of servants of the 
Crown — I think that it would have some tendency to 
improve their character." Mr. O'Connell, who had long 
been their devoted champion, who was well acquainted 
with their origin, habits, conduct, acquirements — must 
have felt that improvement was then necessary, and their 
character has certainly not improved since. If such 
improvement could have been its effect, it is to be 
lamented that the arrangement was not then effectuated. 
" From it were anticipated results certainly beneficial : 
the Catholic priesthood the servants of the British Empire 
— their power of good increased — of evil destroyed — 
their present precarious and illegal livelihood replaced 
by a constitutional and honourable provision — a chief 
cause of animosity eradicated — the country indulged, 
improved — perhaps tranquillized." f The subject was 
afterwards renewed, and in 1808 the English Catholic 
Bishop Dr. Milner, after conference with them, reported 
the measure to be agreeable to the Irish hierarchy, and 
in the same year they declared it themselves to be inex- 
pedient. In 1 815 Cardinal Litta, by authority, announced 
the full acquiescence of the Pope to the proposition ; and 
the Irish bishops, who now proclaim the opinion of the 

* Peter Plymley's Letters. 

t Past and Present State of Ireland, 



UNREASONABLENESS OF PRIESTHOOD. 



151 



papal Court to be decisive against the Queen's Colleges, 
declared their open disobedience of the orders of the 
Pope. In 1816 the Pope remonstrated with the bishops 
on the unreasonableness of their conduct, and in 1817 
they remonstrated with him, praying a concordat, which 
might render the election of their successors domestic 
and independent. In 1818 the Pope replied to their 
remonstrance, directing them " to be at ease" * which 
they have never been, nor suffered the country™ or the 
people to be from that hour to this. As an inducement 
to the concession of emancipation, they boasted that they 
had secured the privilege of Domestic Nomination ; 
and in 1826 Dr. Doyle declared before a Parliamentary 
Committee, — " We are more independent than other 
Catholic churches, because the Pope does not at present, 
and he could scarcely presume to nominate any one except 
such person as we recommend. We are therefore very 
independent, because we have the nomination of our own 
prelates in our own hands, and it would be morally impos- 
sible to take from us that right." Notwithstanding this, 
the present Pope unceremoniously and contemptuously 
rejected the three names selected by the Irish bishops, and 
sent to Rome, — insulting the country and the church, by 
the intrusion of an Italian monk in the person of Paul 
Cullen, into the Roman Catholic Primacy of Armagh. 
The selection of Armagh for the consolidation of the 
hierarchy — the foundation of that metropolitan see, as the 
seat of the Primacy in 465 a. d., was the last creation of 
the apostolic career of St. Patrick. We have seen that 
same Paul Cullen reverse a succession, which had been 
acknowledged in his church, and unbroken for 1400 years, 
and for the purposes of political mischief, lower himself 
* Charles Butler's Hist. Mem., vol. iv., p. 479. 



152 STIPENDIARY PRIESTHOOD — RELIGIOUS PROCESSIONS. 

into the chair of Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. While 
the rock of Armagh has been thus deserted by the church, 
the church boasts of its immutability. 

It was the boast of early Christianity that it planted 
the gospel with the land — it is now a subject of tribulation 
to the Irish priests, that with a diminished culture of the 
soil, they behold a progressive reduction of their devotees, 
and feel a proportionate contraction of their dues. — Some 
fancy, that the recent intemperance of the priests is but a 
delicate decoy to tempt the Government to appease them, 
by a fresh offer of national munificence, placing them under 
pay — as other civil and military officials. The example 
of Maynooth, where State liberality has tended only to 
associate vulgarity with violence — the attitude of the 
bravo assumed by an eleemosynary clergy, brandishing 
defiance in the face of those by whose bounty they were 
fed and reared — will now hardly reconcile the people of 
Protestant England to the expensive and perhaps fatal 
experiment of a stipendiary priesthood. 

Preceding emancipation, it was wise and salutary policy 
to assuage prejudice — to mitigate hostility— and accord- 
ingly the subject of public processions, necessarily insulting 
and exasperating to the members of other creeds, formed 
matter for particular inquiry before the Parliamentary 
Committee in 1826. The following question was pro- 
posed to Archbishop Murray : — " In case of emancipation 
being carried, would you propose that the Catholics 
should be allowed to have processions ?" To which that 
venerable prelate answered thus : — " By no means ! Public 
processions in the street out of their place of worship, I 
would not think at all advisable in a country so mixed 
as ours is, where the different denominations are 
blended together, and where of course one description 



THEIR CONDEMNATION BY THE BISHOPS. 153 



of persons might receive ground of offence from those 
external ceremonies." To the same question Bishop 
Doyle — not a Maynooth priest, but an Augustinian friar, 
who had been educated at Coimbra, and, from witnessing 
them, had learned abroad to despise and detest idle 
ceremonials — replied, " I think wherever different reli- 
gionists are living in the same country, the carrying 
abroad in open air and exposing to public view the cere- 
monies of any religion, is not consistent with sound sense, 
or that prudence which ought always to govern states, 
and therefore I think that those processions in the open air 
outside the precincts of a church, ought to he guarded 
against even hy laic. Question. You think there would 
be no objection to the enactment of provisions on that 
head ? Answer. Really I think it would be desirable they 
should be enacted, for the indiscretions of foolish men, by 
parading those things abroad, might create feelings in 
the community which ivould tend to evil. I should wish 
that such provisions were made.'"* Dr. Doyle further 
added, " that the clerical dress should not be paraded 
through the streets, or through any place where it could 
offend the view or hurt the feelings of persons of different 
religious persuasions." Processions were thus publicly 
condemned, prohibitory enactments recommended by a 
Catholic bishop ; still we have recently seen the Catholic 
priests throw off the mask, if indeed they ever wore it, 
and make a simple proclamation the pretext for clamour 
and outcry frantic and fanatical. Every bad feeling 
which had lain buried since emancipation was evoked 
by the reverend resurrectionists ; and a complaint 
without a cause having, for a purpose, fretted its hour 
upon the stage, has passed away into the catalogue 
* Parliamentary Reports, 1825, vol. viii., p. 220. 



154 



PROCLAMATION — EXCITEMENT. 



of allegorical grievances, which prejudice and passion 
delight so much to create and magnify. That pro- 
clamation merely announced the determination of the 
Government to .preserve the public peace, by enforcing 
the law with impartiality to all. It was designed to be 
mediatory between the exasperating extremes of Catholic 
provocation — of Protestant unendurance. The period of 
its issuing — the approach of July ; the month long the 
prescriptive anniversary of Orange exultation ; the month 
celebrated for insulting commemorations of ancient humi- 
liation, neutralized the surmise of sectarian acrimony in 
its design. The eve of the elections, always exciting, 
never more tumultuous than the last, silenced the suspicion 
of political partisanship in its promulgation. The deci- 
sions of the ignorant are always violent in proportion to 
their erroneousness. Common sense becomes fused in 
the intensity of those impassioned deliberations, which 
distinguish election mobs.* " Bona acque mala non sua 
natura, sed vocibus seditiosum estimantur." The Catho- 
lics ought not to forget, that they at all times stipulated 
for the extinction of Orange processions as celebrating 
the triumphs of race. The Protestants acceded to the 
suppression, on the pledge of the corresponding cessation 
of those of creed. It was the sacred compact of the 
Relief Bill, that no class should thenceforth irritate an- 
other by distinctive exhibitions, either pious or political. 
If the Protestants are interdicted by law from insulting 
the Catholics, on what principle can the Catholics claim 
an immunity from law to insult them ? In an institution 
that boasts of such antiquity as the Catholic Church of 
Ireland, public processions are but modern introductions. 
While spiritual pomp can scarcely trace its origin to gospel 

* Sheil. 



PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS. 



155 



simplicity, it may be difficult to prove that the ceremo- 
nials of religion require to be canonized in vain and 
insolent ostentation. 

In every state authority must reside somewhere, and 
although its canons are crowded with declarations in the 
dark ages, that kings should be subject to the church, 
and submit their necks to her, our earliest historic records 
establish the exclusive exercise of supremacy by the 
Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet sovereigns of England. 
In Catholic times the rude laws and ruder constitution 
prohibited papal encroachments. Our first Edward 
denied and rejected any temporal authority by virtue of 
the pontificate ;* and a statute of Richard II. declared, 
" that the Crown of England had ever been free, and 
subject to none but immediately to God." If Catholic 
countries excluded as treasonable the assertion of supre- 
macy by the Pope, and the encroachments of the clergy 
on the domestic affairs of the State, what pretensions are 
there for their endurance under a Protestant Crown ? 
" To annex any condition you please to benefits created 
or conferred is most natural and just," is one of the po- 
litical maxims of Burke. Catholic sacraments had been 
administered, Catholic claims asserted, Catholic liberty 
vindicated, while Catholic bishops had not yet learned to 
assume territorial titles. Almost the only condition 
annexed to the grant of emancipation — a measure never 
designed to confer power upon the priesthood — was, that 
its concession should not create a right which had never 
been claimed ; and, on the faith of that compact, the 
treaty, of which the professions and demands of the Roman 
Catholics were the preliminaries, was ratified by the 
highest national solemnities. The asserted violation of 
* Hume's England, vol. i. chap. 13. 



156 



AGGRESSION. 



the treaty of Limerick had been, for nearly a century and 
a half, a fruitful theme for popular declamation. When 
an occasion presented itself, the violation of the Treaty of 
Emancipation became the pride and boast of prelatical 
perfidy. Professions disregarded — promises violated — 
oaths evaded ; acts at the same time intemperate, illegal, 
irreligious, were the grateful requitals of priests to the 
generosity of England. They sought to revive the 
ancient struggles of race in the future contentions of 
creeds. Cardinal Wiseman but imitated the example of 
Dr. M'Hale, in seeking to evade the provisions of a law 
passed and accepted by universal accord. The occasion 
selected was insidious and unmanly. Advantage was 
taken of the generous and unsolicited measure of the 
present reign, which received the assent of the Queen on 
the 18th of August, 4848: "An Act to relieve Her 
Majesty 's Subjects from certain Penalties and Disabilities 
in regard to Religious Opinions." Its title explained its 
design and its effect — its relief embraced Jews, Roman 
Catholics, Dissenters, and certain members of the Church 
of England. It repealed so many disabling laws — the 
remnants of ancient intolerance — that it almost swept the 
Statute Book. Liberality, which would have made other 
men grateful, made priests insolent. The prophetic lan- 
guage of Milton was an augury of the acts of those tur- 
bulent ecclesiastics: — 

" Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names, 
Places, and titles ; and with these to join 
Secular power, though feigning still to act 
By spiritual. To themselves appropriating 
The spirit of God, promised alike and given 
To all believers ; and, from that pretence, 
Spiritual laws by carnal power shall 
Force on every conscience." * 

* Paradise Lost, book xii. 



ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 



157 



An unauthorized assumption of temporal authority 
under spiritual pretence would have been resented by any 
Catholic state. A titular partition of her dominions by a 
foreign court, was an affront too audacious to be endured 
by the majesty of proud and haughty England. Human 
sensibility has ever felt more acutely religious insult than 
political wrong. " Even the feeble, pliant Hindoo, who 
bows the neck before the yoke of every conqueror, Chris- 
tian and Mahomedan, Tartar and European, will not 
permit one darling right— one ancient usage — one che- 
rished prejudice to be touched or disturbed. Not Tamer- 
lane — not Zingis — not Clive nor Wellesley, in the 
plenitude of their power, ever dared to assail him in the 
sanctuary of his feelings."! The irritation which the 
calm and temperate rebuke of the " Ecclesiastical Titles 
Bill " excited amongst the Catholics themselves, might 
teach them to estimate the intensity of that Protestant 
feeling — which saw with astonishment, and with dignified 
indignation repelled an outrage at once unwise, unpro- 
voked, insulting, and aggressive. The assumption by 
Cardinal Wiseman of the title of Archbishop of West- 
minster was wanton ; his pompous exhibition as cardinal, 
in which he had been indulged, was ample elevation in his 
church for the plenary exercise of all religious functions. 
The aggressions in his name were but the outworks, through 
which the designs of papal ambition hoped to undermine 
and ultimately to storm the yet impregnable fortress of 
British liberty. " What the Catholic laity," said Mr. 
Grattan, fc< have most to fear, are high-church principles, 
enunciated by the Pope." Such are the principles now 
spreading insidiously amongst them, principles which can 
only be resisted by the manly exercise of mental independ- 
* J. H. North. 



158 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



ence Liberty by priestly connivance is a mere substitution 
for slavery ; and if the Catholic laity do not by the ener- 
getic exercise of timely authority restrain their clergy, their 
clergy will enevitably, by the dethronement of opinion, sub- 
jugate them. They should reflect on the admonition of 
their eminent Catholic countryman, Thomas Moore — " that 
though it be the religion of my fathers, I must say that 
much of this vile, vulgar spirit is to be traced to that 
wretched faith, which is again polluting Europe with 
jesuitism and inquisitions ; and which of all the humbugs 
which have stultified mankind, is the most narrow-minded 
and mischievous."* When the pretensions of men are at 
the highest, their principles are at the worst. Priests may 
ignorantly fancy that emancipation was to them absolution 
from social duties ; but they shall be taught that their 
temper must mitigate, as their audacity is controlled. 
The Ecclesiastical Titles Act but explained and con- 
firmed the intent and spirit of the Act of Emancipation, 
and no class of the community owe more gratitude to the 
legislature than the Catholics, for a measure which 
throws a shield of special protection around them. 

The Act of Emancipation was speedily succeeded by 
the measure of Parliamentary Reform, — and events have 
already developed the national advantages, which this im- 
provement in the elective and representative systems has 
procured for Ireland. Innovations have not proved 
ameliorations, and we have been reminded, that when 
Mithridates, by incessant repetitions of antidotes, strove 
to make his constitution poison- proof, he destroyed it. 
It was plain that the parliamentary privilege could not be 
conferred, and the municipal privilege long withheld. 
Accordingly corporate reform soon followed, and national 

* Memoirs, &c, edited by Lord John Russell, vol. ii., p. 73. 



MUNICIPAL REFORM — RESOLUTIONS OF BISHOPS. 159 

vanity was gratified at beholding Mr. O'Connell, the 
soi-disant liberator of his country, under the coils of a 
gold chain, hybernate for a season in the dignity of Lord 
Mayor of Dublin. The insect pride of citizen vulgarity 
is still periodically indulged, by being permitted occa- 
sionally to flutter in the sunshine of deputed royalty. 
When the causes of complaint were thus successively 
removed, it was naturally but vainly hoped, that the 
embers of political agitation would have been suffered 
to expire. " Theologians," observes the great historian 
of the Roman empire, " may indulge in the pleasing 
task of describing religion, as she descended from 
heaven, arrayed in native purity." It may, perhaps, 
have been the hope of beholding her in that purity, after 
a long absence, again visiting the Irish priesthood, — which 
dictated to their bishops assembled in Dublin, on the 
28th of January 1834, a unanimous resolution, in which, 
— "they most earnestly recommended their clergy to 
avoid in future any allusion at their altars to political 
subjects ; and carefully to refrain from connecting them- 
selves with political clubs — acting as chairmen or secre- 
taries of political meetings, or moving or seconding 
resolutions on such occasions, in order that we exhibit 
ourselves in all things in the character of our sacred 
calling, as ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the 
mysteries of God." If obedience to superiors is the first 
principal of Catholic ordination, it is difficult to conjecture 
what process of religious lustration has since conferred 
upon the priests absolution from such the impressive com- 
mands of their prelates. 

The union of Scotland preceded the union of Ireland 
with England by nearly a century, and although it must 
be remembered that within the first fifty years of the 



160 



SCOTTISH UNION. 



period, occurred the attempts of the two successive Pre- 
tenders, it is some consolation that the effects of the 
consolidation of Northern and Southern Britain were not 
early apparent. It has been remarked that the vices 
generated by centuries of provincial misgovernment — the 
meannesses that had become habitual — the animosities 
that had been so long fostered, could not be immediately 
cured by the removal of their causes. The generations 
they had degraded, must first have been allowed to die 
out, and perhaps more than one generation, before the 
poison-tree — the fountain of bitter waters — could be 
sealed up, and symptoms of returning vigour and happi- 
ness perceived.* By the suppression of episcopacy, the 
expulsion of priestcraft, Scotland had previously achieved 
her emancipation from an enslaving creed. From the 
same causes she derived her successful system of educa- 
tion, the industrial intelligence of her people, the simple 
discipline of her ecclesiastical polity, and the genuine 
piety still residing in peaceful and unostentatious sim- 
plicity, in her remotest moors and most sequestered 
valleys. Antiquarians may mourn over the destruction 
of her monasteries as monuments of Gothic art, but the 
tyrannies and superstitions of ancient times, were in Scot- 
land swept away with them. In extinguishing the instru- 
ments of religious despotism, its existence also terminated. 
In yielding to the public voice, the Scottish Parliament 
confirmed the sentiments of the people, — papacy was 
banished, episcopacy subverted, — and a simpler form of 
creed administered by a submissive priesthood — unam- 
bitious of political influence, amongst a people who would 
not endure it as unchristian — still continues an object of 
sacred admiration in the eyes of the Scottish nation. 
* Edinburgh Review, October 1827. 



REFORMATION — CHURCH PROPERTY. 



161 



The reformation in Ireland also prostrated the mo- 
nasteries, metamorphosed the ecclesiastical edifices ; but 
while it separated the property from the ancient church, it 
did not separate from the church — the people. The clergy 
took their character from the race they taught, and the 
rude intractable spirit which even the Gospel could not 
soften in the savage natives, only slumbered to break out 
more fiercely, when power permitted it, in the home-bred 
uncivilized priest. The penal laws had before the Union 
subdued them ; that measure found them politically 
powerless, and left them so. It substituted the honourable 
example of England for the exercise of intolerant and 
tyrannic monopoly, an example that ought to have fitted 
any people for freedom. The gift of freedom to a people 
unfitted for it has only lifted priests into power, and made 
the unmanageable many — slaves to the will of an equally 
unmanageable few ; and they, having been suffered to 
render free representation impracticable, hope to render 
just government impossible. As imperial legislation has 
increased the political privileges of the people, the intelli- 
gence and public spirit of the country have proportion- 
ately contracted. As intellectual independence receded, 
priestly audacity rose and advanced to trample on it. 
The clergy of the same creed that long submissively 
bowed to Protestant ascendency, now insultingly aspire 
to Catholic supremacy; and although the priesthood is 
not itself hereditary, and although its temporal posses- 
sions passed away from their church nearly four centuries 
ago, they now insist upon an hereditary title to them for 
that church.* The Catholic laity must recover their 

* The Commission, dated at Westminster, 20th of May 1539, 
31 Henry VIII., directing a valuation of the possessions of the 
monasteries and religious houses in Ireland, contained the follow- 

M 



162 



VICEROY ALTY. 



position, reassert their authority, rescue themselves from 
the priests — before they can assume the stature, or stand 
erect in the attitude of freemen. 

There was one distinctive feature in the union with 
Ireland. By a perversion of Constitutional principle 
purely national, when she parted with her Parliament — 
she kept her Viceroy. Mr. Grattan described an anti- 
union Lord Lieutenant, as " a man who made his entry 
into Dublin seated on a triumphal car, on one side Falla- 
cious Hope, on the other Many-mouthed Profession — a 
figure with two faces, one turned to the Treasury, the other 
presented to the People, with a double tongue, speaking 
contradictory languages." A post-union proconsul reading 
this, will probably recognize the transmitted resemblance. 
The continuance of a Lord Lieutenant separates the 
administration of Ireland, from the administration of the 
State — creates the evils of competition without the power 
of rivalry — and while the empire is indivisible, the govern- 
ment is divided. As there is no Irishman in the Coali- 
tion Cabinet, and as the chief governor is stationed in the 

ing direction to the Commissioners : — " And furthermore that 
they should assign to the heddes and conventual persons of the 
said houses competent pensions to maintain their being withal 
during their lives, or unto such time as they should be preferred 
to some promotions or benefices, or otherwise provided for, 
having respect to the qualities of persons and the revenues of 
the said houses." The grants of pensions were numerous, some 
to bishops and some to nuns. The highest pension appears to 
have been 50/. a-year, a very liberal allowance in those days ; 
many were only 40s., some as low as a mark, and several were 
granted to the late parsons of convents. It would appear that 
there were then female parsons ; one of the grants being to Elicia 
Gall, late parson of the convent of the abbey of Kilkillen, a pen- 
sion of 40s. ; and a similar one to Egidia Fitz-John. It may, 
perhaps, be inferred, that the Eeformation was not propagated 
with such extraordinary severity as has been represented. 



ABOLITION RECOMMENDED. 



163 



Castle, Ireland is only represented by deputy in the 
Councils of the Queen. The Vice-regal establishment 
encourages and concentrates within its circle, all the 
needy and greedy place-hunters of the country. Back- 
stairs intrigues are the avenues to place and patronage : 
provincial corruption and cheap champagne circulate 
freely in the same channels at levees and drawing-rooms. 
The peer who in succession borrows his drapery from the 
wardrobe of royalty, is beset by everybody for every- 
thing, abused by all, and exhibits the mock dignity of a 
Court without the protection of a Crown. While the 
Crown is fixed and never errs, with every triumph of fac- 
tion comes a change of Viceroy ; with every fluctuation 
of opinion, a variation of policy — with every alternation of 
party, a new shuffling of cards ; a fresh undoing, only to 
see its own deeds again undone. Every successive Lord 
Deputy endures the responsibility, without the authority 
of a minister. His banishment from Parliament deprives 
him of the power of self-defence. Blamed, bearded, and 
baffled in Dublin, he is censured and sacrificed in Down- 
ing-street. While the mimic pageant appears to the 
enlightened — an idle, expensive, and delusive superfluity ; 
it encourages in the ignorant — dreams of solitary indepen- 
dence, and teaches the populace, and even the priests, to 
cling around the sterile trunk of withered nationality. 
The Union will never be consummated until this display 
of scenic pomp shall vanish, " and, like the baseless fabric 
of a vision, leave not a rack behind." 

"We are near to England," said the celebrated Henry 
Flood in 1784 — " I hear my countrymen lament, and 
often have I lamented it myself — yet indulge me, my 
countrymen, while I explain my paradox. On that 
proximity does the weal of Ireland depend — it is a 

M 2 



164 



UNION — STEAM. 



perpetual guarantee against the oppression of any self- 
created protectorship ; it is perpetual because it depends 
not on the policy or caprice of kings or nations ; it is 
fixed in the nature of things." Nature seems to have 
given the two islands an atmosphere of their own, in 
which, regardless of what passes without, if man would 
only permit it, they might breathe in happiness. Since 
the days of Flood and in the hour of her peril, the winds 
were styled " the ancient and only unsubsidized allies of 
England."* She is now independent of such alliance. 
The design of Omnipotence is apparent in throwing the 
chain of the seas around the sister islands. Man, it was 
said, could not remove the boundaries of creation — could 
not annihilate time and space. Steam has done both ! 
" Steam," said Canning, " has deprived the winds of 
their proverbial fickleness." Steam has done more to 
consolidate the nations than the legislation of centuries. 
Steam connects the two islands as it were by floating 
bridges, and disregarding time and space, almost obliterates 
the geographical distinctions which were stamped upon 
them by the hand of nature. The marvellous rapidity 
of electrical light has been still more recently made 
subservient to science — and become, under human control, 
the medium of communication — the conductor of intelli- 
gence, instantaneous and unerring, between the capitals — 
nay, the most remote and distant parts of the kingdom. 

With steam communication thus connecting the two 
islands in physical unity — arose the most extravagant and 
most dangerous of modern popular delusions — an agitation 
for the repeal of the legislative union ; an agitation 
purely and exclusively religious, to which with a Catholic 
liberator for a leader — with priests as drummers beating 
* Sydney Smith. 



CATHOLIC BISHOPS FAVOURABLE TO UNION. 165 



the march of intellect — ignorance, pauperism, folly, and 
fanaticism — furnished ready and multitudinous recruits. 
Before that union, according to Burke, Ireland consti- 
tutionally was independent, politically she could never be 
so — it was a struggle against nature. She enjoyed the 
protection of the most powerful country upon earth, 
giving her privileges without exception in common, 
"reserving to herself only the painful pre-eminence of 
tenfold burthens."* The measure of the Union was 
effectuated for their more intimate connexion by the 
distinct legislatures of both countries, long before the vast 
powers of steam had been rendered by human skill avail- 
able, either on land or on the ocean. By that Union 
the colonial existence of Ireland had terminated, she 
ceased thenceforth to be occupied by the garrisons of a 
different nation. Previous to Emancipation, the Catholic 
gentry, prelacy, and priesthood had been zealous in 
soliciting the Union. In a letter from Bishop Dillon to 
Archbishop Troy, of the 1st day of September 1799, that 
venerable prelate states, " I have had an opportunity, in 
the course of the parochial visitation of my diocese, of 
observing how little adverse the public mind is to the 
measure of the Union, and I have also had an opportunity 
of acquiring the strongest conviction, that this measure 
alone can restore harmony and confidence to our unhappy 
country." . . " If I can judge from appearances, the people 
are heart- sick of rebellion and French politics."! Doctor 
Bray, R. C. Archbishop of Cashel, in a letter of the 
1st of July 1799, to Archbishop Troy, states — "As 
far as I can understand the measure, it will be productive 

* Letter of the 18th of May 1795, to Dr. Hussey. — Castlereagh 
Correspondence, vol. iii., pp. 121, 122. 

t Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 387 



166 



THEIR MOTIVES, 



of substantial benefit to both countries, and therefore it 
meets my good wishes, and shall have the whole of my 
little mite of assistance."* Dr. Moylan, the Roman 
Catholic Bishop of Cork, in a letter of the 14th of Septem- 
ber 1799, to Sir John Cox Hippesley, observes, " Nothing 
in my opinion will more effectually tend to lay those 
disgraceful and scandalous party feuds and dissensions, 
and restore peace and harmony amongst us, than the 
great measure in contemplation of the legislature — the 
union and incorporation of this Kingdom with Great 
Britain. The Roman Catholics in general are avowedly 
for the measure. "f In a letter from the Rev. H. Dowling, 
parish priest of Tullamore, dated January 17th, 1800, to 
Lord Castlereagh, he assures him, " In the country parts 
of this kingdom, we only wait to be called upon, in order 
to declare our decided opinion in favour of that measure. 
I speak the sentiments of thousands of my communion." J 
The prelacy and priesthood had the horrors of the 
rebellion then fresh in their memories, a rebellion in 
which, according to Mr. Moore, twenty thousand loyalists 
and fifty thousand rebels suffered ;§ besides thousands of 
the latter driven into exile and plunged in ruin, families 
banished, estates sequestered. They might also have 
anticipated, that the perverseness of the Catholic rabble 
would have rendered a renewal of severities indispensable, 
for even Mr. Canning himself was forced to declare 
in Parliament, — " If the union with Ireland do not 
take place, it may be necessary to re-fortify Protestant 
ascendency by reviving the old penal code against the 
Catholics." What must men think of Irish Catholic 

* Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 345. 

f Ibid., p. 399. X Ibid., vol. iii., p. 227. 

§ Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, vol. ii., p. 203. 



MANIA FOR REPEAL OF UNION, 



167 



bishops and priests as political guides of a people, when 
we find that same body, after emancipation, shouting 
lustily for the restoration of the system their predecessors 
so deplored ! Conceded claims only encouraged redoubled 
demands, and the Catholic rabble, headed by the priests, 
became clamorous to annul a connexion then cemented 
by an existence of nearly half a century, sustained by an 
increase at least one hundredfold in the varied and wide- 
spread relations of social, commercial, maritime, financial, 
and political interchange — a connexion to which Ireland 
had then become naturalized. The repeal of that Union 
would have been the separation of Ireland from England, 
the re-creation of two distinct races — of two separate 
people whose interests had become identified — whom 
nature, art, legislation, and time had made one. Benjamin 
Franklin, great amongst the great founders of American 
Independence, had long since declared that such "separa- 
tion would be the dismembering of the Empire." Nations 
become proud as they become enlightened. Ireland whose 
intellectual education under priestly instruction has been 
at best but stationary, in her insane and insatiable pursuit 
of unattainable objects, has ever exhibited the distinction 
between national vanity and national pride. In the excess 
of the former, the Irish flattered themselves that she 
could exist alone — deficient in the latter, they shrunk 
from aspirations to a generous rivalry with Great Britain 
in the active, useful, industrial, and commercial pursuits 
of man. While it is the proud boast of her eldest sister 
to meet and overcome present difficulties — Ireland idly 
recurs to past disasters, and palliates her apathy to 
emulate a great example — by pointing to centuries of by- 
gone degradation. In their vain attempt to grasp what 
has been styled "a splendid phantom," the Irish as usual 



168 



AGITATIONS FOR THE REPEAL. 



began at the wrong end ; they set about erecting the 
dome of nationality in the air, before the foundations of 
institutions — the columns to support it- — had been laid in 
the country. 

Referring to the period selected for the idle pursuit of 
legislative independence, it was well observed by Sydney 
Smith, " That although the Irish became so clamorous 
about making their own laws, the wisest and best statutes 
in the books have been made since their union with 
England. All Catholic disabilities have been abolished ; 
a good police has been established over the kingdom ; the 
criminal laws have been reformed and mitigated ; free- 
trade between Great Britain and Ireland has been com- 
pletely carried into effect ; Lord Lieutenants are placed 
in every county ; tithes are taken off Catholic shoulders ; 
the county grand jury rooms are flung open to the 
public ; county surveyors are of great service ; a noble 
provision is made for educating the people ; and this is 
the country that is to be Erin-go-braghed by this silly, 
vain, and irritable people to bloodshed and rebellion."* 
This distinguished writer knew the Irish well ; he knew 
them to be the same people, who in the twinkling of an 
eye had handed over the country to the Nuncio and the 
priests ; who had licked the dust from the feet of the 
brutal and abject James. Has any improvement since 
taken place in a people, who could greet with shouts such 
extravagancies as the following from the lips of their 
leader? At Mullingar, on the 14th of May 1843, 
O'Connell proclaimed — " I wish to state that I have 
every reason to believe, and I may add, I know, that 
every Catholic bishop in Ireland, without an exception, 
is an ardent repealer." (Enthusiastic cheers, in which Mr. 
* Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church. 



ITS ABSURDITIES. 



169 



O'Connell heartily joined.) " From shore to shore we are 
now all repealers." Again — " All the bishops of Ireland 
are repealers. I defy all the ministers of England to put 
down the agitation. If they attempted to rob us of the 
daylight common to all, and prevent us from assembling 
in the open fields, we will retire to our chapels. We will 
suspend all other instructions, in order to devote all our 
time to teaching the people to be repealers in spite of 
them. (Cheers.) If they beset our temples and mix 
our people with spies, we will prepare our people for the 
circumstances ; and if they bring us from that to the scaf- 
fold, in dying for the cause of our country, we will be- 
queath our wrongs to our successors." (Tremendous 
cheering.) At Tara he thus assured the Irish, and they 
believed him, " that teetotalism was the sure ground on 
which rested their hopes of sweeping away Saxon domi- 
nation, and giving Ireland to the Irish." (Renewed cheer- 
ing.) " I feel it to be a fact that Ireland, roused as she is 
at this moment, would furnish women enough to beat the 
entire of the Queen's forces." (Cheering.) At Roscom- 
mon he apostrophised thus : — " Oh ! I love teetotalism, 
Napoleon boasted of his body-guards, but I can boast 
of more than an imperial guard of virtuous teetotallers. 
(Cheers.) There is not an army in the world that I 
would not fight with my teetotallers." (Long continued 
cheering and waving of hats.) While we blush for 
human folly at the perusal of such absurdities, we are 
consoled by the reflection that the Catholic bishops and 
priests, confederates in the sin and shame of such exhibi 
tions, were again destined to witness the invariable result 
of priestly movements, signal and disgraceful failure. 

We have seen from original letters, which only came 
to light since the delusion passed away, that the Catholic 



170 



CATHOLIC PRELATES AND PRIESTS. 



clergy who were not indebted to the bounty of England 
for their education, were, previous to Catholic equaliza- 
tion, intently anxious for the Union, as the only means of 
calming the distractions of their country. What must 
impartial minds think of the Catholic prelates and priests 
educated by the State at Maynooth, — of their sense of 
obligations conferred, of their intellectual, moral, and 
religious training, who, after the concession of every civil 
right, could congregate rude masses to excite popular 
clamour, with the design of terminating that Union and 
reviving the distractions of that country ? Are such 
men qualified for the rational exercise of the simplest 
political privilege ? Are men so ignorant of the history 
of other countries and of their own, fitted to be what they 
audaciously assume, the self-constituted dictators of 
opinion ? To what a state of mental vassalage must the 
wretched land be reduced, which can endure such de- 
gradation. From that vassalage — the Catholic laity can 
only be relieved by the extinction of priestly predomi- 
nance. Away, then, with apathy ! Catholics beware ! 
The little liberty they have yet left you is in peril, if that 
priesthood are again permitted, while they approve and 
applaud the persecutions of Tuscany, to delude, deceive, 
divide, and distract the people — by heading a fresh 
crusade, by repeating the same displays of extravagance 
and folly — as the false apostles of religious equality. 

The repeal mania congregated masses only to expose 
popular infatuation — hurled empty menaces only to ex- 
hibit national weakness — kindled public passions only to 
create private animosities — aroused fanatical prejudices 
only to embitter sectarian distinctions — profaned religious 
feelings but to scandalize its ministers — and excited 
delusive hopes only to display them blasted. By the 



DELUSION. 



171 



Catholic priesthood, the machinery of all the repeal 
mischief was set in motion ; the evil spirit was centralized 
in the prelacy, and descended through all the ramifica- 
tions of the clergy. The church collectively, its members 
individually, were equally disgraced by the unnatural 
union of the priest and the demagogue. In the general 
contagion of national folly, the priests — objects of adora- 
tion to stupid starers — shouted loudest in applauding the 
extravagant haranguings, exhibited themselves most pro- 
minent in the idle cavalcadings of the great incendiary. 
Instead of fulfilling the first ordinance of Christian dis- 
cipline, obedience to superiors, the Catholic clergy were 
seen, during the repeal delusion, associated with revolu- 
tionary declaimers in seditious confederacies. In alliance 
together they consoled the people for the ignorance and 
wretchedness to which they had reduced them, by assuring 
them that they were the finest peasantry in the world. 
In order to improve the kindly relations between landlord 
and tenant, they attached to the proprietary of every 
estate a pedigree of crimes, generally imaginary ; when 
otherwise, always exaggerated. While endeavouring to 
impede agricultural improvement in Ireland, by interfering 
with its pursuits,* they descanted on the unrivalled 
fertility of her fields ; while they banished industry from 
amongst her operatives, by making them politicians, — and 
trade, commerce, and capital from her shores by insulting, 
alarming, and excluding strangers, they declaimed on 

* "While Mr. O'Connell was distracting the tenants of every 
man in the community, he was neglecting his own. Mr. Foster, 
the "Times" Commissioner, in his very valuable letters in 1845, 
assured us : — " In no part of the United Kingdom is such neg- 
lected wretchedness — such filth — such squalor — such misery of 
every kind to be seen, as I saw on Mr. O'Connell's estate." — 
Letters, p. 529. 



172 



VISITATION OF PROVIDENCE. 



the matchless magnificence of her harbours ; whilst they 
aroused the worst passions of the people by inflammatory 
and exasperating speeches, they announced themselves 
messengers of peace ; and whilst they professed to be 
ministers of religion, by their impious imprecations they 
aroused the vengeance of heaven. In their insane and 
unchristian exhortations to the peasantry — to leave the 
harvest uncut, the fields untilled — was foreshadowed that 
fate which afterwards scourged the country ; — foredoomed 
that famine which swept that peasantry from the earth. 
In afflicting visitations on large masses of the creation, the 
voice of the Almighty ever declares itself most audibly. 

Mr. O'Connell lived to see years of pestilential agita- 
tion under his direction poison the fountains of popular 
instruction — paralyse the energies of national enterprise — 
pervert the channels of fertilising capital — and with the 
aid of his accomplices the priests — murder the mind of 
Ireland. The object of that agitation, in the hope of 
palliating its imprudence, was alleged by its author to be 
but a means to an end ; that end proved the acquisition 
of tribute. The funds so acquired realized the vulgar 
adage — while they impoverished still more the pockets 
of the poor, from which they were drained, they did not 
enrich him, into whose they passed. The rent and the 
sedition moved in a circle, mutually producing and pro- 
duced, until at length, the money flowed in so fast, it 
almost bribed him into rebellion. Stimulated by personal 
vanity, he wielded unequalled popular power, but to waste 
its strength ; — encouraged, but to be deserted by the 
hollo wness of priestly support, he degenerated from a 
national incendiary into an imprisoned martyr, to sink 
a political suicide. Sydney Smyth made the following 
remark on the reversal of his conviction by the House of 



YOUNG IRELAND. 



173 



Lords — " England is, I believe, the only country where 
such an event could have happened, and a wise Irishman 
— if there be a wise Irishman — should be slow in separat- 
ing from a country whose spirit can produce, and whose 
institutions can admit of, such a result."* 

One, and one only, pledge was kept by Mr. O'Connell, 
" there shall," said he, " be no rebellion in Ireland in my 
time :" that was a blessing he intended to bequeath to 
posterity. He did not survive to witness the contemptible 
mimicry of one — typified in its insignificance, only by the 
meanest flutterer of the insect creation— the cabbage 
moth, — it had its origin, its brief and inglorious existence, 
and its end in a cabbage garden ! He lived long enough, 
however, to see himself supplanted in popular favour 
by one more vain, more visionary, and as mischievous as 
himself. In the idealism of nationality lurked a longing 
for royalty by both — while a tipsy hope encouraged the 
one to fancy himself, when adorned with a half cap — half 
crown — monarch of all Ireland — the equally rational but 
less aspiring rivalry of the other, was limited to the 
visionary crown of a province. When adulation as silly 
as its object, approached Smith O'Brien to hail him King 
of Munster ! — the proffer of his subjects was declined in a 
burlesque of the moderation of Cromwell, thus — "Not 
yet ! Not yet !" The priests as usual joined only to 
desert, mutinied in order to betray, and when they 
fancied there was danger, were found upon their knees. 
Spouting clubs, mongrel ballads, rabid nonsense, idle 
rhodomontade, were the safety valves through which 
evaporated the high-pressure valour, and patriotism of 
Young Ireland. 

The last words Mr. O'Connell uttered in Parliament, 

* Fragment on the Irish Catholic Church. Works, pp. 480, 
481. 



174 



O'CONNELL. 



were on the 23rd of April, 1 846 : the scene has been thus 
described by an eye-witness : — " His appearance was of 
great debility, and the tones of his voice were very still. 
It was a strange and touching spectacle to those who 
remembered the form of colossal energy, and the clear 
and thrilling tones that had once startled, disturbed, and 
controlled senates." " He prayed that all should be 
buried in oblivion — protection to all, injustice to none."* 
Forsaken by the party he had raised and sustained — be- 
trayed by former adherents — baffled by purchased partisans 
— deserted by sycophants who had fawned upon him — for- 
gotten by those he had befriended — thwarted and traduced 
by those whom he had reared and fostered — rejected by 
the very priests whose influence he had created and cor- 
rupted — despised by that mob he had courted and com- 
manded—crushed by disappointed ambition — appalled at 
the spectre of disaffection he had himself evoked, he sunk 
an object of pitiable prostration — an example of popular 
fickleness — a beacon to deter other agitators — a warning 
to future demagogues. Seeking shelter from national 
outcry, he set out for Rome, which he never reached — to 
die under the blessing of the Pope. A post-mortem 
examination disclosed a deeply-diseased brain, and de- 
monstrated that alone to a disordered imagination, 
alternately stimulated by and stimulating the priests 
in hostility to the religion and institutions of England, 
could be traced the delusions, divisions, and distractions 
of his country. He found amidst the reproachful visita- 
tions of remorse — in a distant land — a deserted household 
— a desponding conscience — a repentant's death-bed, and 
a craven end — the last sad refuge of a broken heart ! 
Thus closed the public career of a man — whose name 

* Life of Lord George Bentinck, by the Right Hon. Benjamin 
Disraeli. 



CONTRAST. 



175 



was for years almost as frequently before the public eye, 
as that of the illustrious soldier who survived and has 
lately sunk to rest. Their lives — contemporaneous and 
concurrent — furnish materials not for a parallel, — but for 
a contrast. Both born in the same island; both nearly 
of the same age ; both acquired their early education in 
France,— the one for a soldier, the other for a priest — 
both actors on the same political stage ; both filled dis- 
tinguished but distinct positions in the same national 
event ; both — from far different motives, far different 
sources — objects of profuse national munificence. The 
descendants of the one derive from their illustrious head 
the most exalted nobility, the most memorable titles, un- 
bounded affluence. The other — the creature of impulse, 
the dupe of vanity — by his death rebuked the imputation 
of avarice, and redeemed many of his frailties, by be- 
queathing poverty to his family, as their only heritage. 
Sanguine and inconsiderate recklessness characterised 
the one, — prudent calculation, deep reflection, and single- 
minded moderation distinguished the other. While sin- 
cerity and truth were the polar stars which guided the 
splendid career of the one, the other steered his vain, 
erring, and eccentric courses by deliberate and continuous 
deviations from both. While the one wasted his own 
and his country's energies in the visionary pursuit of 
impossibilities, and relied on the success he attributed to 
himself in a single event, to float him over endless fol- 
lies and failures ; the other — chaining fortune at his feet — 
attempted everything required for the conduct of the 
greatest wars, — for the ascendency of the greatest em- 
pire, and achieved everything he ever attempted. The 
one — ever in the front of danger — made his devotion to 
the country the guide of duty to his followers; the 



176 



WELLINGTON. 



other — skilful in providing for his own safety — triumphed 
in the evasion of her laws, as a test of his loyalty to the 
State. Persuasions, temptations, threats were vain to 
lead the one from the inflexible path that was right ; the 
flattery of any fawning slave, or sycophantic priest, was 
sufficient to seduce the other, into the silly pursuit of 
everything that was wrong. The one subdued popular 
passion by dignified magnanimity ; the other aroused 
popular fury only to create embittered disappointment. 
The one acquired public applause by despising it ; the 
other lost immeasurable popularity, by the insatiate anxiety 
with which he courted it. While it may be sadly but 
truly said, that the latter left the country he had deluded 
and misled — " to perish like a cast-off 1 mistress under the 
diseases he had given her ;"* the other, by the heroism 
of his achievements, exalted the empire that he served 
and saved ; encouraged posterity by the example of the 
citizen ; admonished the present age by the wisdom of 
the patriarch ; and merging the austerity of the soldier in 
the milder duties of the legislator, the venerable patrician 
became the idol of national pride. So evanescent was the 
fame of the one, that he w r as almost forgotten in the coun- 
try that once worshipped him, before the tomb had closed 
over his remains. Distance only rendered the deeds of 
the other more vivid. The sun of his glory, circled by 
the halo of his popularity, remained unclouded to the last , 
and his eyes enjoyed, until they closed for ever, the full 
perception of its effulgence. Death only revived and 
recalled his renown ; and, with Victory and Fame, ranked 
as mourners over his grave — the sprits of Liberty and 
Peace. 

* Junius. 



PROTESTANT GENTRY — SIR FRANCIS HEAD. 177 



CHAPTER VII. 

The transition from the national calamities of which an 
insubordinate priesthood have been the authors, to the 
social evils in which they appear as the principal actors — is 
but a step. The war of aggression against property, 
commenced with the finale of the phantom-dance after 
repeal. The Protestant gentry to a man declared against 
the dismemberment of the Empire, and although the 
delusion has passed away and is forgotten, they were 
never forgiven. The guilty projectors, patriots as well as 
priests, while they despised the credulity of those who had 
been their dupes, detested and combined to destroy those 
who had refused to be their associates in the treason. Sir 
Francis Head, a highly competent authority, who as 
governor of one of the provinces of Canada, was ac- 
quainted with the distinctions of race and creed, asks 
and deliberately answers this question, — "Are the priest- 
hood of Ireland the cause of the moral degradation of 
Ireland ? — I reply, They are ! The Irish priesthood have 
brought scandal on the sacred name of the Catholic 
Church — they have disgraced the cloth they wear — they 
are culpably driving from a beloved soil hundreds of 
thousands of men, women, and children, whom it was their 
especial duty spiritually and morally to befriend/'* To 

* A Fortnight in Ireland, by Sir F. Head. J. Murray, Lond. 
1852. p. 251. 

N 



178 SOCIAL EVILS TRACEABLE TO THE PRIESTS. 



that priestood may be traced the disorganization of society 
in all its ramifications. They encouraged early marriages 
— a fruitful source of personal emolument : " the bed the 
poor peasants had to lie on, was sold to make their 
concubinage lawful,"* and thus led to the subdivision of 
farms for breeding paupers. They promoted the grafting 
of tenancies on tenancies, and thereby multiplied petty 
tyrants : by conniving at guilt, they sheltered crime — by 
excluding education, for an intelligent peasantry, they 
substituted a slavish and superstitious serfdom — by exciting 
religious detestation, they converted social dependency into 
angry antagonism — by denouncing rents, they rendered 
property valueless, and drove its owners, in order to rescue 
themselves from ruin, at exorbitant- prices, to buy back 
their own — by encouraging dishonesty and cupidity amongst 
tenants, they led to the secret hoarding of money, which 
belonged to their landlords — by diverting it from its 
varied channels of natural circulation, they promoted its 
accumulation, ultimately to supply th.e resources for 
emigration. Notwithstanding the examples they have 
witnessed, the privations they have endured, they still 
systematize indolence by the number of holidays they 
sanction and enforce — promote idleness by the ignorance 
they encourage — impede industry by disassociating the 
interests of the cultivator and proprietor of the soil — 
check improvement and enterprise by raising sectarian 
hatred, and consequent political rancour as barriers of 
exclusion from the advantages of example and advice, 
and stifle exertion by the pernicious notions they instil of 
" tenant right," — a term which ignorant delusion willingly 
interprets — a tenure of land, freed from the obligation of 
rent, or the necessity of labour. The clamour for tenant 
* Sydney Smith. 



TENANT RIGHT — LORD CLARE. 



179 



right is but the same wild cry of " Ireland for the Irish," 
which so long swelled the chorus of Repealers and priests. 
In abandoning the promulgation of the gospel to preach 
the creed of tenant right, a term convertible into property 
spoliation, the priests teach nothing new. Lord Chancellor 
Clare enumerated amongst the national evils, long before 
the Union, that " it was a common equity in Ireland to 
improve a man out of his estate." Legislation ought to 
pause before it confides to the influences of priestly 
morality, the legalized and conscientious reconcilement of 
assertions of imaginary expenditure, with the realization 
of flagrant robbery. 

By exciting a servile war against property, that clergy 
drove landlords in self-defence into retaliatory severities ; 
by arraying class against class, they placed the various 
gradations of society in that state of antagonism towards 
each other, which harmonized in universal mischief to all. 
In rendering the clearance system the last resource for the 
salvation of property, they succeeded in transferring the 
blood and bone and sinew of hardy manhood, which under 
other tutors, might have been rendered industrious and 
invaluable on the banks of the Suir and the Shannon, to 
fertilize those of the Ohio and Mississippi. In their 
rabid anxiety to exterminate the Protestant gentry, they 
impoverished the best consumers, and thereby, with 
suicidal infatuation, drove the county traders, almost 
invariably of their own creed, their own chief sustainment 
— to emigrate. The education of the priesthood at May- 
nooth has perhaps not ascended to that period in the 
former history of their mistress, when the demagogues of 
ancient Rome, exciting the plebeian classes against their 
patrician employers, strove by turbulence and threats to 
overawe the senate into submission to the inroads of 

n 2 



180 



AGRARIAN LAW OF ROME — GRAZING. 



agrarian pillage. The priests have probably never been 
taught there, how the parable of the operative members 
of the body, rebelling against its sustaining organs of 
vitality, but being finally obliged by necessity to resume 
their natural but subordinate functions, restored even the 
rabble to reason, and silenced and subdued the discon- 
tented.* 

" La culture des terres," observed the philosophic 
Montesquieu, "devient pour les hommes, une immense 
manufacture ;" yet in Ireland, where there was no other 
manufacture but her agriculture, the priests, to secure its 
extinction, shouted for free-trade. Althougb conscious 
that whatever compensating balance there might have 
been in England, to regulate the equilibrium between 
machinery and man, there was none such in Ireland — they 
denounced protection to native industry, and were mainly 
instrumental in converting an arable into a pasture soil. 
"Where," said Swift, "the plough has no work, one 
family can do the business of fifty, and you may send 
away the other forty-nine." f Grazing monopolizes, by 
covering with cattle large tracts of the most fertile land : 
it not only expels population, but it renders the few who 
remain attached to the soil, more miserable than the 
cottagers who struggle against nature on the sterile 
mountain's side. While it diminishes people, it promotes 
indolence ; and the capital that might employ and render 
many industrious and happy, supports but the solitary and 
slothful herdsman. The evils of depopulation now so 
apparent in Ireland were early felt in England, and 
stringent laws were passed in successive reigns to restrain 
it. The amiable Chancellor Sir Thomas More had early 

* Livy. 

f Swift's Works, by Sir Walter Scott, vol. vii. p. 376. 



DEPOPULATION— SIR THOMAS MORE. 



181 



thus quaintly, but pathetically described the clearance 
system of his day : — " Therefore is it, that one covetous 
and insatiable cormorant, and very plague of his native 
country, may compass about and enclose many thousand 
acres of ground within one pale ; the husbandmen be 
thrust out of their own, or else either by covin and fraud, 
or violent oppression, they be put beside it, or by wrongs 
and injuries they be so wearied, that they be compelled to 
sell all. By one means therefore, or by other, either by 
hook or by crook, they must needs depart away — poor, 
silly, wretched souls — men, women, husbands, wives, father- 
less children, widows, woful mothers with their young 
babes, and the small household, small in substance, much 
in number, as husbandry requireth many hands, — away 
they trudge out of their known and accustomed homes, 
finding no place to rest !" How applicable this picture of 
days long gone by, to the houseless and homeless wretches 
— who daily crowd the quays, the victims of religious dis- 
cord and political contentions. Lord Keeper Coventry, in 
"the reign of the first Charles, in his directions to the judges 
of assize, enjoined them " to make strict inquiry after 
depopulations and enclosures — a crime," said, he, " of a 
crying nature, that barreth God of his honour, and the 
King of his subjects. Churches and houses go down 
together !"* The Catholic clergy, the principal 
authors of extermination, can now attest the truth of this 
maxim ! 

The collapse of famine was followed by the fever of 
emigration. What was spared by the former is still 
swept away by the latter. When that contagion once 
visits a community, it spreads like the circles which a 

* State Trials, tern. Charles I. 



182 FAMINE — EMIGRATION CELTIC PRIESTS. 



pebble cast into a lake produces ; its expansion can neither 
be calculated nor controlled. " Nations," said G rattan, 
" have neither a parent's nor a child's affection — like 
the eagle, they dismiss their young, and know them no 
longer :" — still the natural ties of blood and kindred, 
though far apart, retain an instinctive tendency to reunite. 
The chain of rude affection, whose distant links are 
scattered at the other side of the Atlantic, continues 
to attract its severed fragments from this. When and 
where will it end ? " Non enim possunt una in civitate 
multi, rem atque fortunas amittere, ut non plures secum in 
eadem calamite trahunt/'* The priests are now through 
their organs loud in their lamentations — " that the Irish 
nation is fast dissolving, as the Jewish nation dissolved 
before the curse of God."f The men of Celtic blood,- 
deficient in the qualities which distinguish the Anglo- 
Saxon even beyond the other branches of the Teutonic 
family, and partaking of the nature of their Scythian 
origin, are naturally migratory. America presents ample 
field for the expansion of races, and the red aborigines, 
classed by Prescott, in his History of Mexico, " amongst 
the shadowy races of men," are fast verging to extinction. 
It seems however a strange paradox, that while the 
people are flying from their exactions, the Celtic priests, 
whom few would regret, remain stationary — that while 
boasting of their devotion to their flocks, they seem not 
disposed to follow them. They feel that the emigrants 
seek shelter from them in a country, that, in tracing back 
its origin, its elevation, its language, its laws, its habits, 
its institutions, its freedom, its perseverance, and its public 
spirit, points to England ; —a country which, with an 

* Cicero. . t 

t " Nation,'' Dublin paper, edited by C. G. Duffy, M.P. 



REPRESENTATION SHE1L — CUKRAN. 



183 



innate repulsion, abhors and rejects the pretensions of 
priestcraft — the transplantation of popery. 

The representation of Ireland in the days of the 
ascendency had been exclusive, but it was at least select : 
confined to a class, the chosen were invariably gentlemen 
by birth, education, and station. If not emblems of perfect 
purity in their political tenets, they graced society by 
their cultivated manners, and adorned the literature of 
their age by the inspirations of their eloquence. If in- 
tolerant, their intolerance resembled the marble slab — hard 
and polished. Sheil thus early described the class of 
adventurers, who were destined to push aside the gentry : 
" The ephemeral favourite who heads the party of the 
day, is the man who combines most turbulence with the 
least principle. The ranks of party are recruited by all 
whom poverty makes desperate, nature discontented, 
laziness seditious — yelling for toleration, they are the 
most immoderate bigots — declaiming against slavery, they 
are the most remorseless tyrants." The purification of 
the elective system, the subsequent extension of the 
franchise, by enfeoffing the priests with the representation, 
has empowered them to exclude the gentry who had any 
property from Parliament, to become there, objects of 
incessant vilification by those, whose only claim to public 
favour was, that they possessed none. The deputies of 
the priests were accordingly to be found session after 
session, as Curran had predicted, " sleeping in their col- 
lars, under the manger of the British minister," snapping 
at and subsisting upon the scraps of patronage thrown 
to them as hush-money. The recent attempts of papal 
power to reassume its supremacy abroad, has encouraged 
and invigorated priestly audacity at home. Influence had 
been defined — a courteous name for profligacy on the one 



184 PRIESTLY INFLUENCE— INTIMIDATION. 

hand, and prostitution on the other — and priestly influence 
has been permitted at the recent elections to oppose 
to liberal opinions a counteraction, systematic and sadly 
successful. In daring to defy the law, by denying the 
rights of the church to those, whose exercise of the fran- 
chise was uncontrolled by them, the priests wielded 
a frightful tyranny — unsettling not only the social and 
domestic comforts of this life, but the hopes and expecta- 
tions of happiness in that which is to come. By their in- 
solent denunciations, oscillating between the extremes of 
bombast and blasphemy, they converted the hustings into 
the scaffolds of popular liberty, and the press teemed 
with sacerdotal atrocities — at which Bossuet would have 
blushed, and Fenelon would have shuddered. 

" The nation which has combined beyond all example 
and all hope, the blessings of liberty with those of order, 
might well be an object of aversion to those, who have 
been false alike to the cause of order and liberty/'* 
Detestation of the free institutions of England was ac- 
cordingly the war-cry of the priests at the elections : 
intimidation of the wise and weak — their strength ; in the 
inundation of their turbulent lawlessness, nationality was 
even precipated — fanatical bigotry alone rose to the 
surface. In the qualifications of candidates to please the 
priests — in no country so intensely anti-protestant as in 
Ireland — intelligence was unnecessary — acquirements 
forbidden — property offensive — independence odious. In 
selecting the English seedlings, they sought to graft on 
Irish stocks, apostates — the worst specimens of perverted 
nature — when they were to be found, were the favourites. 
In the choice of men in whose veins flowed Irish blood, 



* Macaulay. 



THEIR SELECTIONS— CONTRAST— QUEEN'S COLLEGES. 185 



they preferred those, in whose faces it was never seen to 
blush. " Parliament," declared Burke, " is not a congress 
of ambassadors from different or hostile interests, which 
interest each must maintain as an agent and advocate : 
Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with 
one interest, that of the whole. England itself is but a 
part of a great empire, extended by our virtue and our 
fortune to the furthest limits of the East and West. All 
these wide-spread interests must be considered — must be 
compared — must be reconciled if possible." The members 
who acquire from the priests their parasite importance, 
are selected from motives precisely the reverse — are 
deputed to impede the business of the empire — to em- 
barrass its deliberations, by incessantly bellowing in the ears 
of Parliament, the glorification of their church. These 
men, bent upon disturbing the institutions of the country, 
have not yet learned the distinction between the penal 
code — intended only to be temporary, and the constitu- 
tional code — destined and declared at the revolution to be 
perpetual. The representation once ennobled by the giant 
dignity of a Grattan and a Plunket, has degenerated 
into a dwindled race, and the national humiliation is 
complete, at hearing the wrongs of the country proclaimed, 
through the penny trumpets of her priestly nominees. 

" The knowledge of man/' said Bacon, " is as the 
waters, some descending from above, some springing from 
beneath — the one informed by the light of nature, the 
other inspired by divine revelation." Ignorance, by ex- 
cluding man from the contemplation and study of his 
Creator, while it limits his conception, isolates him from 
God. The opposition to the Queen's Colleges by the Papal 
clergy, borrowing from English bigotry the designation of 
" a gigantic scheme of godless education," i* the most 



186 PAPAL AND PKIESTLY OPPOSITION TO EDUCATION. 

startling symptom of the progress of ecclesiastical audacity. 
Does that opposition arise from a consciousness, that, 
although science like light may be diffused without being 
diminished, darkness is essential to hide deformity ? Is it 
an avowal, that the pupil of mental vision in Catholic 
Ireland, cannot endure the same intensity of light, which 
pervades the intellectual firmament of Great Britain ? 

Scotland, a country greatly inferior in size, wealth, and 
population, has enjoyed the collegiate system, and some 
of her four colleges since the fifteenth century ;* and 
whilst they cannot be blind to the vast benefits of which 
it has been the parent, the system encouraged by the 
Scotch is proscribed by the priests of Ireland. In de- 
nouncing liberal education, they revive the worst tyranny 
of the penal laws — that — which denied to the parent, the 
right to educate his child where he pleased. Their 
hostility is the more oppressive, as it threatens spiritual 
terrors, where civil penalties were the milder punishment 
of unnatural law. Mr. O'Connell early felt and admitted 
the superiority of the Protestant — the mental inferiority 
of the Catholic, and vainly hoped that by tasting the air 
of freedom, the mind of the latter would acquire the 
energy and decision which liberty can alone bestow. f Is 
it endurable, that the descendants of that race, who for 
years palliated their inferiority, by referring to the dark 
period, during which education to the Catholic was foiv 
bidden, should now, in the full enjoyment of liberty, when 
the State flings open the portals of knowledge equally to 
all, permit their priests to start up, and brandishing 

* The College of St. Andrews was founded in a.d. 1410 ; that 
of Glasgow in 1450; that of Aberdeen in 1516; and that of 
Edinburgh in 1560. 

t Speech in 1814 ; Memoirs, &c, by his Son, vol. ii., p. 178. 



EARLY ANXIETY OF CATHOLIC GENTRY FOR EDUCATION. 187 

denunciations, clap their backs against the doors to keep 
them closed ? " Superior knowledge was one cause and 
branch of Protestant ascendancy, from which the Catholics 
can alone emancipate themselves."* 

Trinity College in Dublin t had been designated the 
eldest child of the Reformation ; and whatever may have 
been the political condition of the Catholic gentry, the 
Parliamentary Records of Ireland furnish a remarkable 
instance of their anxiety before the Union, for a liberal 
system of education, the want of which had been acutely 
felt by them. Mr. Grattan presented a petition to the 
Irish Parliament in 17^5, numerously signed by the 
Catholic laity, objecting to the establishment of Maynooth, 
as a measure " by which no Protestant or child of a Pro- 
testant should be permitted to receive education in that 
College." . . . Their exclusion" they considered, "as 
tending to prevent that harmony, union, and friendly inter- 
course through life, which might thus be early cemented 
between the youth of different religious persuasions, the 
happy effects of which, had been felt, by the permission of 
having the Catholic youth educated in the University of 
Dublin "\ Although the Catholic gentry of that day, were 
only then beginning to ascend the steps of the temple of 
liberty, their minds were aspiring in the right direction. 
The priests were silent — submissive — subdued ; their 
opinions were not sought by the laity, and they did not 
presume to intrude them. 

* Past and Present State of Ireland. f Founded in 1591. 

% Catholic College Bill.— Irish P. D., vol. xv., p. 20. Plowden's 
History of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 519. The Act 35 Geo. III. is styled, 
" An Act for the letter Education of Persons professing the Popish 
or Roman Catholic Religion." 



188 DOCTOR DOYLE FAVOURABLE TO MIXED EDUCATION. 

Catholicism, exclaim the Irish Catholic bigots, cannot 
survive mixed education. Mixed education was thus 
recommended by the most eminent of the Irish Catholic 
bishops, the exemplary and intellectual Dr. Doyle. " We 
have but one university in Ireland, a country containing 
more than eight millions of inhabitants, whereas four 
at least would be required ; — and that a University 
to which the mass of the people cannot have access — a 
University also, whose religious tests and exclusions are 
a libel upon its very name, for a University, to be such, 
should not confine its advantages to any privileged class. 
She should not, whatever her system of instruction might 
be, devote herself almost exclusively, as ours does, to the 
preparing a few gentlemen for the learned professions, or 
close practically her doors against the middling classes of 
the people." ..." Why does the mangled history of our 
own country present to us a complicated scene of bigotry 
and prejudice — of insurrection, anarchy and fraud ? I 
believe the confusions of events have partly concealed 
from us their true cause ; they are but partially inves- 
tigated, when we attribute them to particular circum- 
stances or individuals ; but if, rejecting all secondary 
causes, we seek those which are primary, we will find 
prominent among the latter, the ignorance of our people." 
" If then all of us, who dwell in Ireland, and whose fame, 
and fortune, and interests, and affections, are indissolubly 
connected with the country of our birth, are truly anxious 
to contribute something towards laying the foundation of 
her future welfare, we should not overlook the means we 
have of doing so, by opening to all her children the living 
fountains of knowledge, and rendering those fountains 
accessible to all." ..." To redeem our country from the 



BIGOTS OF THE SYNOD OF THURLES. 



189 



reproach of ignorance," he recommended " institutions so 
arranged as to be accessible to all the youth of Ireland, 
without distinction of class or creed" .... "Whose sole 
object is to place not only elementary knowledge, but also 
science within the reach of all ; to work the immense mine 
of human talent, which lies buried in Ireland, to separate 
the fine ore from the baser metals which accompany it, 
bring it forth, and enrich by it not only this country, but 
every country in the habitable globe/' Dr. Doyle antici- 
pated and predicted the bigotry and wickedness of the 
present opponents of the Provincial Colleges. ..." How 
many pests," said he, " are always found in society, whose 
only employment seems to be to disparage the best and 
wisest proceedings —to find fault with other men — to dis- 
cover defects in whatever is attempted, for the public 
good — as if the most perfect projects could be exempted 
from them ; to insinuate suspicions of those, who expend 
their lives and labours for the good of mankind, and to pro- 
duce embarrassment by a mysterious affectation of wisdom, 
and of a foreknowledge of difficulties and obstacles not to 
be removed ; whilst their own odious and selfish conduct 
creates the greatest difficulty to be met with, by the 
virtuous and benevolent ! Such persons whisper away 
the character of public men and public proceedings." " If 
a useful object be undertaken by one set of men, another 
will be found to decry it, solely because it has found 
favor in the eyes of their opponents." * Read this, bigots 
of the synod of Thurles, and hang your heads in shame ! 
In the erection of the Queen's Colleges, in their patron- 
age by the Crown — in their munificent endowment by 

* Letter to Daniel O'Connell, for the Extension of Science to 
all Classes of Irish Youth, 1829. 



190 WORDSWORTH — APOSTATE PRIESTS OF OXFORD. 

the State, we witness the realization of the ardent prayer 
of Dr. Doyle — of the benevolent aspiration of the poet :— - 

" Oh ! for the coming of that glorious time, 
When — prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth, 
Our best protection — this imperial realm, 
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit 
An obligation on her part to teach 
Those, who are born to serve her and obey." 

Wordsworth. 

Whilst the ships of England waft over the globe the 
produce of her industry, her capital, and her skill, the 
office of the emigration agent is the only busy shop in 
Ireland, the only crowded cargoes those of human beings 
flying her shores ; while the monuments of operative art 
and thriving industry crowd the surface of England, in pyra- 
midic pride, convents and monasteries are the only rising 
manufactories in Ireland. The skill, industry, intelligence, 
energy, and capital of England, would be desirable intro- 
ductions to enrich her emaciated sister. These the priests 
labour to exclude ; the worst of all imports, are those they 
encourage —her apostate priests! Were not the Irish 
priests depraved enough, without the inoculation of fresh 
virulence from English apostacy ? By what sacrament do 
the missionaries of Wiseman presume to officiate in the 
political communion of the Irish gentry ? By what title 
do they dare to set afloat the bad passions of the people, 
making them restless in disposition, riotous in demeanour, 
impotent in utility? Trading in the weaknesses and 
infirmities of humanity, this class always quarters itself in 
the most luxurious herbage ; the dissensions they create in 
families are but incitements to appetite. Conspicuous for 
" that peculiar malignity towards those whom they have 
deserted, which has been in all ages the characteristic of 



CRANMER — WOLSEY— ARMAGTT. 



191 



apostates/'* those men combine the fawning of the 
sycophant with the extravagance of the zealot, the 
lubricity of the knave with the affrontery of the impostor ; 
in politics incendiaries — intolerants in religion — in fami- 
lies firebrand? — cravens in peril. What pretensions have 
the excommunicated of Oxford to become teachers of 
ultramontane theology in Ireland ? Oxford, the seat of 
the tenets of WicklifFe — the heresies of the Lollards ! 
Oxford, where the slavish doctrines of non-resistance had 
their origin ! Oxford, the scene of the martyrdom of 
Cranmer — an ominous example ! Of Cranmer, who before 
the heroism of his death, had consecrated his attachment 
to the faith in which he died, subscribed no less than six 
recantations.-)* 

The same aggrandizing spirit, which in all ages has 
guided the designs of the papacy, has stimulated the 
ambition of its churchmen — Cardinal Wolsey, on whom 
had been conferred extensive legatine authority, had 
endeavoured to make the Irish church subservient to 
an English cardinal ; but the Catholics of that day 
disclaimed his authority, especially those within the 
English pale { It must not, however, pass unnoticed, 
that when Wolsey, illustrating the humility of his 
Heavenly Master by the pomp of his earthly displays, 
on the 15th of July, 1527, landed at Calais, perhaps 
as prophetic of the subserviency of Paul Cullen, he 
was waited on by the Bishop of Dublin.§ Tampering 
with the see of Armagh may be but a step towards 
effectuating in the Cardinal Spaniard, that ecclesiastical 

* Macaulay. 

t Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. i., p. 136. 

% Ireland and her Church, by the Dean of Ardagh, p. 114. 

§ Annals and Legends of Calais. By Callow. Lond. 1852. 



192 SLAVISH OPINIONS OF THE APOSTATES. 



authority, which was indignantly denied to the haughty 
and implacable Wolsey. The missionaries from Oxford 
may have come but to prepare the Irish priests, low though 
they are, for further abasement. Meek at first, the insolence 
of their demeanor increased with the unsuspecting gene- 
rosity of their reception, and they now proclaim their 
determination to put down the colleges of the Queen. 
Are the Irish laity, who boast their island to have been 
the ancient sanctuary of learning, prepared, at the 
bidding of these Neophyte intruders, to render her the 
seat of modern Vandalism ? It may, perhaps, be their 
aim, in denouncing her native institutions, to eradicate 
every trace of nationality, and to have the education of 
her youth, like the legislature of Ireland, transplanted to 
the precincts, and placed under the priestly dominion 
of Westminster. It is some consolation — it affords some 
hope of the regeneration of the country — that the lips of 
the native members have been unpolluted in Parliament 
by the base, slavish, and degrading opinions, the enun- 
ciation of which, was the exclusive and peculiar pride of 
the apostate intruders on her representation.* The 
selection of such mouthpieces reveals the real feelings 
of the priesthood, their anxiety to adopt in this — the 
example of those countries bowed to the earth, by papal 
and priestly despotism. The public avowal of these senti- 
ments, illustrates what the Catholics would have to expect, 
if handed over by the State, exclusively to the priests. The 
inquisition itself is an object of admiration, its erection 
an object of ambition to those, who could hope to see in 
themselves, the civil authority superseded by the eccle- 

* See the Speeches of Messrs. Lucas and Bowyer, the English 
Convert members for Ireland, in the debate on the Tuscan 
Persecutions, 18th February, 1853. 



INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 



193 



siastical — the merger of the common in the canon law — 
after their separation since the days of William the 
Norman.* Are the Catholic gentry of Ireland fallen so 
low, as to present their independence, their pride, their 
honour, their principles, their country, as offerings to the 
lowest of all abortions — the popery of England? to 
emulate those fanatics of antiquity, who laid a fly upon 
an altar, and sacrificed to it an ox ! 

The attempt of the Pope to impede national education 
rivals in audacity his design of territorial partition ; and 
the bigots who failed in the one, seek to wipe away the 
disgrace of their defeat, by their insolent and insane per- 
severance in the other. Conscious that mental servitude 
cannot long survive intellectual improvement, in announc- 
ing what they designate his condemnation of the Queen's 
Colleges, they proclaim the infallibility of the Pope. 
Such was not the doctrine of the Catholic bishops, clergy, 
and gentry in 1793, when they solemnly declared, " that 
it is not an article of Catholic faith ; nor are they re- 
quired to profess, or believe that the Pope was infallible." 
Even in later times, when Cardinal Quarantotti, Pre- 
sident of the Sacred Missions at Rome, forwarded to 
Ireland the approval of the timid Pius VII. to the 
arrangements proposed by England, the bishops, clergy 
and laity of Ireland indignantly flung in the face of the 
papacy that document, then styled, " a rescript of 
Italian audacity !" So daring, when it suited their 
purposes, was the mutiny of the Irish clergy against the 
authority of the Pope, who, grateful to England, was 
disposed to be reasonable and moderate, — that Friar 
Hayes, who was sent to Rome as the bearer of their 

* Wilkins's Anglo-Saxon Laws, p. 230. 

Q 



194 FORMERLY DENIED BY THE CATHOLICS. 

insolent repudiation, was expelled by papal authority, 
and removed from the holy city by force.* 

" History informs us," said Father OXeary, " that a 
pope was excommunicated on suspicion of having favoured 
the doctrine of the Monotholites ; that Pope John XXII. 
was obliged to retract the doctrines he preached at 
Avignon ; that popes were deposed by a council to put 
an end to disorder and schism. The Popes mfallihility 
is no part of the Catholic creed. Did not the Catholic 
barons and clergy of England, with Archbishop Langton 
at their head, obtain the great charter of English liberty, 
in defiance of the threats, menaces, and excommunications 
of Pope Innocent III. ? Without any breach of faith, or 
rupture of Catholic communion, the keys of St. Peter 
painted on the Pope's tiara, and the crescent raised on 
the Saracen's turban, are equally obnoxious to Catholics, 
if either nodded at an attempt against their liberties !" \ 

Whilst the clerical conspirators against the national 
institutions, announce that the Pope . has decided the 
colleges of the Queen to be dangerous to faith and 
morals, they conceal that the deliberations of papal 
councils, if entitled to the slightest weight, are, like 
the proceedings of papal tribunals, conducted in the 
dark; their adjudications pronounced in the absence of, 
and without hearing those, whom they are intended 
to affect. They suppress from the credulous and de- 
luded Irish, that Catholic youth of England, educated 
at Stonyhurst and Oscott, are freely admitted to receive 
collegiate honours at the mixed university of London. 
To illustrate their notions of religious equality even 

* See his letter in the Appendix to O'Connell's Life by his 
Son. 

f O'Leary's Vindication, p. 111. 



UNIVERSITY OF LONDON— CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. 195 

amongst those of their own class, they insultingly deny 
to the Catholic youth of Ireland, the advantages which 
they willingly concede to that of England. While in 
pursuit of that silly phantom, a Catholic university, its 
projectors " thieve " simpletons of their money ; they 
suppress from them, that degrees to entitle their brothers 
and their sons to practise the learned professions, — to 
suit them for appointments in the army, the navy, the 
colonies, to elevate them to rank and station, cannot be 
conferred without a royal charter. While they inau- 
gurate Dr. Newman because he is English, as the head 
of an Irish university, where they announce that Catho- 
licism is to be exclusively taught ; they omit to state that 
the King's College, in London, has been refused a 
charter, because it is exclusively Protestant! The lan- 
guage of Caesar, descriptive of ancient Gaul, " Gallia est 
omnis divisa in partes tres," applies to the modern distri- 
bution of creeds ; and if the Catholics are to be indulged 
with exclusive collegiate institutions, on what principle 
can similar endowments be denied to the Protestants, and 
also to the Presbyterians? Concede but the principle, 
and each seperate class will become clamorous for a 
separate legislature. Are the multiplied examples of 
priestly extravagance — the certain miscarriage of priestly 
absurdities — the inevitable failure of priestly projects — to 
be for ever thrown away on the credulous and deluded 
Catholics ? Dr. Newman has been successful in escaping 
the penalties of a libeller; but if he represents himself to 
be what the ignorant and infatuated believe, but what he 
is not, the head of a legalized university, he may find it 
difficult hereafter to evade the punishment of an impostor 
Papal audacity and priestly intolerance may for a while 
impede the advance of education, in the vain but visionary 

o 2 



196 PASCAL— GALILEO — PRESIDENT NEWMAN— DUNCIAD. 



hope, that popery may yet preside as the tutelary genius 
of English national institutions. "The Jesuits," ob- 
served Pascal, "obtained a papal decree, condemning 
Galileo's theory of the motion of the earth ; but as the 
earth is really moving, all mankind together would be 
unable to keep it from turning, or themselves from turn- 
ing with it." If there be mind in Ireland capable of 
cultivation, all the conspiracies of popes and priests will 
be fruitless to prevent its development. The shadow on 
the sun-dial of the King of Judah once went back ; 
but time, obedient to the destinies of creation, again re- 
sumed its course. 

The martyrdom of President Newman has commenced. 
He is already tied to the stake of a large sinecure, and 
exhibits at least the inflexibility of folly. The system 
described as suiting the dunces in the days of Pope, will 
apply to the dolts of ours. Dr. Newman may find the 
following of use as a sign over his university, or as a 
prospectus to entice simpletons to become his overgrown 
schoolboys ! 

Placed at the door of learning, youth to guide, 

We never suffer it to stand too wide ; 

We ply the memory, we load the brain, 

Blind rebel wit, and double chain on chain ; 

Whate'er the talents, or howe'er designed, 

We hang one jingling padlock on the mind ; 

We dim the drowsy eye, and stuff the head 

With all such reading as was never read. 

So spins the silkworm small its slender store, 

And labours till it clouds itself all o'er. 

What though we let some better sort of fool 

Thread every science, run through every school, 

Never by tumbler through the hoops was shown 

Such skill in passing by and touching none ; 

With the same cement ever sure to bind, 

We bring to one dead level every mind. — Dunciad. 



PHILIP II. — CONTINENTAL SEMINARIES MAYNOOTH. 197 



It was observed by Montaigne, that " whoever would be 
cured of ignorance must confess it." The selection by 
the Irish priests of Newman, even for an illusory dis- 
tinction, is a confession of their consciousness of in- 
feriority. They hoped, that his imagination having 
been captivated by the florid Gothic embellishments 
of their church, he might be induced clandestinely to 
transfer from the rich treasures of Oxonian literature, 
some ornamental patches, to restore the antiquated, 
fantastic, and faded drapery of their own. That confes- 
sion of inferiority, the only semblance of humility yet 
observable, may perhaps be made available for their own 
educational improvement. It was the policy of the 
Spanish Cabinet of Philip II., when it founded on 
the Continent the British and Irish ecclesiastical semi- 
naries, to create a class distinct in principles and 
interest from their fellow-subjects. The object of the 
institution at Maynooth was, on the contrary, to check 
the influences of an alien priesthood — supposed to be- 
naturally inoculated with prejudices against the country,, 
and to provide that principles of civil hostility should not 
be engrafted on the religious education of the clergy. The 
vicious principle of the worst period in the history of 
Spain, was adopted in the British foundation — exclusion 
of the priests from mingling and conversing with those 
of the better classes, with whom they are intended after- 
wards to associate. In the design it was forgotten, that 
youthful and early friendships are the warmest and most 
enduring, and that while they humanize the rising, they 
tend to bind future generations together. The first pro- 
fessors at Maynooth were French refugee clergy, whom 
adversity had rendered submissive — terror taught to be 
loyal — the early doctrines of the establishment, those of 



198 GALLICAN CHURCH — ULTRAMONTANE DOCTRINES. 



the Gallican church — the most enlightened and inde- 
pendent child of the papacy. The leaven of the Jesuit 
formulary was however preserved, but the tenets which 
prevailed in the days of Loyola are unsuited to the pro- 
gressive advance of ours. The present education prides 
itself in perpetuating the subjugation of the mind, by as- 
serting and enforcing the doctrine of infallibility, assumed 
on the fallible authority of councils and popes. That 
education makes it a conclusive argument in favour of 
their creed, that it cannot endure the reasoning of any 
other religion but its own. While it instils into unculti- 
vated minds, extravagant notions of their own superiority, 
it teaches that the reformation which has supplanted their 
church in the most civilized, free, and contented dominions 
of Christendom is but the growth of yesterday ; and that 
those, whom superior intellectual and moral culture 
attaches to it — are but rebels and deserters. Dr. McHale, 
a professor in the institution, before he had been elevated 
into an archiepiscopal violator of solemn laws, in his 
evidence before the Education Commission — declared, 
"The ultramontane opinions are not taught in Maynooth. 
These opinions would be quite in our conception destructive 
to that allegiance which we owe to our gracious sovereign" 
..." The opinions of the ultramontanes would seem to 
us to be destructive of the authority of kings." This 
avowal of the danger of those doctrines is sufficiently 
alarming ; and it is not an unfair inference, from the altered 
tone, language, and demeanor of the priesthood, that since 
it was uttered in 1826, a change has crept into the esta- 
blishment, with the more intolerant influences of modern 
papal presumption. That system must be vicious, which 
teaches its students, that the first thing they have to learn 
when they become priests, is to forget their Maker. It is 



IRISH CONSTABULARY — GERMAN STATE OF HESSE. 199 



idle to talk of a home education, where foreign doctrines 
are inculcated — where faith is merged in the axiom of 
mental obedience to hostile authority — to hope to suit 
those to free institutions, who are kept invincibly ignorant 
of their value, or are instructed only to hate them. 
Equally idle is the expectation of improving a people, on 
whom are annually let loose instructors — trained only in 
the antiquated impostures of priestcraft. The anticipa- 
tion of future tyranny over others, is the strong inducement 
to the noviciate priest to endure mental slavery himself ; 
but a clergy to teach a turbulent and uncivilized people, 
ought not to take their character from that people. The 
defective education at Maynooth was made, in 1845, an 
argument for an increased grant, but what steps have been 
since taken by the State to improve the system ? Have more 
real learning, more refined literature, more advanced 
science, more cultivated taste, more civilized manners been 
introduced to instruct those, who are permitted to preach to 
millions of their fellow subjects — although unqualified and 
incompetent to teach them? The degraded state of the 
Irish priesthood, must in a great degree arise from the 
degradation of the institution that produced them ; the 
stream never rises higher than its source. Many believe 
that it is a vain hope to expect improvement in that 
priesthood ; but man is a progressive animal, and Sir 
Francis Head has properly referred to the instance of the 
Irish constabulary, as an example — that Roman Catholics 
and Protestants, under due discipline, and proper subordi- 
nation, may live and serve together in harmony even in 
Ireland. An instance can also be found in the German 
state of Hesse, where humility and very moderate means 
of support produce such a happy state, even amongst the 
clergy. " There is nothing," observes Sir Arthur Brooke 



200 CATHOLICS — PROTESTANTS — JEWS— PRIESTS OF MEATH 

Falkener, " for which the Hessian states are more remark- 
able, than the perfect practical toleration of all religious 
persuasions, and their charity towards each other. Catho- 
lic and Protestant live in the most perfect harmony, neither 
caring more for the religious creed of another, than he 
does for his particular opinion of the longitude or the 
north-west passage. Nowhere throughout the electorate, 
could you find one person assuming a right of browbeating 
another for not being of the same religious opinion with 
himself." ..." The clergy are exemplary in the discharge 
of their multifarious duties. The spiritual and temporal 
comforts of their flocks, and their nurture in all sound 
impressions of religion is their unceasing care. The 
average of a Hessian clergyman's stipend is about forty 
dollars a year, the dollar 3s. Stirling; to which there is. 
added a house, a garden, and a little farm. A very few 
are paid as much as two or three hundred dollars.* 
" To the immortal credit of the clergy, the meanest 
village is never left without ample spiritual assistance ; the 
humility of his life enforces the poverty and contentment 
which it is his duty to preach : the Protestant and 
Catholic are on the best possible footing with each 
other."-f-. . . " Several of the professors of the University 
are Catholics, and their pupils Jews."J What has been 
effected in one state may assuredly be accomplished in 
another : even Ireland itself once presented an example. 
While an O'Beirne was Protestant bishop of Meath, his 
brother was a Roman Catholic parish priest in his diocese, 
and both lived in harmony together. We have recently 
seen that diocese scandalized by clerical turbulence 
beyond all others. The Maynooth priests of Meath 

* A Visit to Germany, vol. i., p. 75. Bentley, Lond. 1833, 
t Ibid., p. 87. X Ibid. 



MK. GLADSTONE— NEAPOLITAN STATES. 201 



selected at the last election the drab of the quaker, 
turned up with hypocrisy, and fitted to the measure of an 
English counterfeit convert, as their favourite livery ; — and 
in resisting and rejecting the son of Henry Grattan, to 
whom they were such debtors, they rioted in the most fero- 
cious turbulence. Their demeanor only confirmed the 
early remark of the acute Erasmus — while kindness will 
tame wild beasts, it has never yet been known to have had 
that effect with priests. 

The frightful tyranny exercised by the system of judi- 
cature in a Catholic State, that of Naples, where priestly 
dominion predominates, as described by a member of the 
present cabinet in a letter to its noble head, startled 
credulity : when Mr. Gladstone was in Naples, from 
15,000 to 30,000 victims daily crowded the Neapolitan 
dungeons. The indignation of an Englishman was 
shocked at the existence of a system denounced by him 
as "an incessant systematic deliberate violation of law,". . . 
" as the wholesale persecution of virtue when united with 
intelligence,". . . "as the awful profanation of public religion 
by its notorious alliance in the governing powers with the 
violation of every moral law,". . ."as the perfect prostitution 
of the judicial office," which has made it, " the degraded 
recipient of the vilest and most clumsy forgeries got up 
for the purpose of destroying the peace, happiness, ay 
and lives of the most virtuous, upright, intelligent, dis- 
tinguished and refined of the whole community," ..." as 
the savage and cowardly system of moral, as well as in a 
low degree of physical torture."* In making those fright- 
ful charges, Mr. Gladstone, in his examination of the 
official reply of the Neapolitan Government, observes — 

* Letter from the Right Hon W. E. Gladstone, M.P., to the 
Earl of Aberdeen, p. 8. Murray, Lond., 1851. 



202 MADIAI — PAPAL AtfD OTHER STATES OF ITALY. 



" Launched on the 20th year of public life, I cannot 
plead the character of a novice in excuse or palliation of 
temerity/' . . . u I well knew that on the general truth 
of my charges I was staking my character, which though 
little in itself, was much to me."* . . . " In Naples the 
principle is, first, that men are to be treated as guilty 
until they are proved to be innocent, and secondly, that 
they may still be so treated, although they have been 
tried and not found so. A favourable decision only 
places *a person in the same position he stood in before."t 
.... 44 In all state offences, the police may arrest and 
detain persons without being confined to any limit of 
time."t Such are the blessings the priests would willingly 
substitute for the benignant protection of British law. 
The treatment of the wretched Madiai in the dungeons of 
Tuscany, is but a solitary specimen of the general system, 
universally prevailing under the Papal and other govern- 
ments of ill-fated and priest-crushed Italy. Such would 
be the state to which the priests, if let loose upon the 
people, as they are in those countries, would reduce society 
and education in this. Revolting as those atrocities are to 
human nature, the course of public instruction which ex- 
cludes the philosophy of Bacon, the histories of Gibbon and 
even of Goldsmith, the poetry of Milton/the precepts of 
the Bible, and punishes their perusal by imprisonment, can 
hardly be expected to render its votaries wiser or better — to 
exalt the mind, or ennoble the nature of man. The grounds, 
even supposing them to be true, on which their justification 
has been attempted by the priests and their applauders, 

* Examination of the Official Reply of the Neapolitan Govern- 
ment, by the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, M.P., p. 7. Murray 
Lond. 1852. 

f Ibid., p. 15. J Ibid., p. 22. 



ROYAL COLLEGES PROPOSED EXTENSION. 203 



are equally affronting to common sense. How base, how- 
unblushing, how barefaced must those men be, who while 
they annually extort large sums from the Roman Catholics, 
under the pretence of supporting " The Society for the 
Propagation of the Faith," encourage the persecution of 
others for the crime of propagating the Gospel ! 

The honour of the state is pledged to the continuance 
of the national grant to Maynooth ; but its continuance 
vests in the state the power to control its appropriation, 
and State pensioners cannot object that those who pay 
the professors should appoint them. The kingdom 
that has succeeded in Christianizing the savage ought 
not to despair of civilizing the Christian, and the 
improvement of humanity is the noblest exercise of 
national bounty. Lord Clare, in a letter of the 18th of 
April 1799, to Lord Cornwallis, referring to Maynooth, 
observes, " It seems to be a complete Irish idea, first to 
make an establishment, and then to take the chance of 
guarding against its maladministration/'* To borrow a 
happy illu&tration, it was left to the chapter of accidents, 
but the book in which that is found has no beginning, and 
the end is torn out. Why not, by manly decision, make the 
Queen's Colleges intended for the general improvement of 
the country, auxiliary to the special improvement of the 
priests? Exclusion from liberal education only tends to 
lower the . priesthood still lower, by rendering them the 
creatures of a single idea — the church. By requiring a 
preliminary collegiate training for the students, as pre- 
cedent to a right of admission into Maynooth, their class 
and character would be raised ; by conferring on the 
Royal Colleges the power to grant degrees of Doctor of 

* Castlereagh's Despatches, vol. ii., p. 278. 



204 



IMPROVEMENT OF PRIESTHOOD. 



Divinity to deserving, loyal, and enlightened ecclesiastics, 
a generous and pious rivalry of religious emulation would 
be created. If state policy should ever concede a stipen- 
diary provision to the priesthood, relief from their exactions 
would be gratifying to the peasantry, who, by refusing to 
support them, where the nation was willing to be their 
paymaster, would assuredly soon " buckle fortune on the 
backs of their pastors." By confining the endowment to 
those members of the clergy, who by their education and 
conduct were entitled to it, the Church itself may be im- 
proved — perhaps regenerated — possibly adorned. The 
priests may be then taught, that in preaching an exclusive 
Christianity, they inculcate a confined charity ; that if their 
religion prevents them from subduing animosities, discipline 
may at least control them. They may then also learn, 
that while clamouring for liberty of conscience for them- 
selves, they are bound to allow others to participate, and 
that those who insist on the freedom of acting as they 
please, should not refuse to others the power of thinking 
for themselves. They may also perhaps feel, that laws 
which best preserve public liberty, best protect private 
rights — that that legislation is wisest, which, by defining 
the boundaries of constitutional rights, emphatically 
declares them to be as sacred and as inviolable as the 
frontiers of nations — which, by despising idle penalties, 
prevents the scandal of their evasion — which by prohibit- 
ing infringements at the peril of exemplary punishment, 
enforces and ensures obedience. They may in the end 
reverence, if not admire that spirit, which while it rescues 
the people from priestly domination, — restores the clergy 
to their sacred, their proper duties, — and proclaims to the 
Papal church, that although she may subjugate other 
countries, she cannot enslave this. 



FRANCIS I. — CONCORDAT — NAPOLEON. 



205 



As the original ecclesiastical establishment at Maynooth 
had been adopted from, and founded on, the Gallican 
discipline, there can be the less objection to submit to the 
same civil regulations as exist in France. The boundaries 
between spiritual and temporal power are, or at least 
until recently were, very distinctly defined there, and a 
strict inspection provided for and exercised by the Govern- 
ment, which did not permit in clerical education, doctrines 
or principles contrary to the laws and established institu- 
tions of the state. The Irish bishops, we have seen, had 
tendered to the Crown, as the price of a national pro- 
vision for themselves, a due control over the nomination — 
to secure the loyalty — of their successors. The concordat 
which Leo X. granted to Francis I. had invested 
the French crown with the nomination of the Gallican 
bishops, reserving their collation only to the pope. In 
France, even before the Revolution, every rescript from 
Rome was presented, within a given time, to one of the 
Provincial Parliaments ; and after examination by that 
assembly, a declaration that it did not contain anything 
hostile to the Gallican church, or to the temporal rights 
of the Crown, was requisite to give it effect. Napoleon 
declared that control over religion was essential to 
Government, and the fresh concordat, which when First 
Consul he procured from Pope Pius VII., conferring 
further powers upon the civil Government, was designated 
by him, the vaccination of religion. " If," said he, " the 
Pope had not previously existed, he ought to have been 
made for the occasion."* A just and wise arrangement, 
which should now vest in the British Crown a similar 
control, would doubtless be the signal for prelatical outcry, 



* Montholon, vol. i., p. 121. 



206 FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION —PROSPECTS FROM LAST. 



but we are reminded that the ancient unbending legitimist 
bishops, who deeming that the new concessions of the 
Pope would subvert the papacy in France, refused their 
assent and oath of fidelity, were summarily deposed. The 
prophetic wisdom of Napoleon has triumphed — the system 
so much apprehended by the priests, from which a refined 
infidelity was predicted, has weaned the people from its 
harlot embraces, and has at all events tended to 
Catholicise France ! 

The first French revolution was a war of liberty against 
religion — the last may prove a war of religion against 
liberty. Of that first revolution, " the great political 
physician," Burke, " when he saw the wild work doing in 
France, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished between 
the access of fever and the force of health. What other 
men conceived to be the vigour of her constitution, he 
knew to be but the paroxysm of her madness — prophet 
like, he pronounced the destinies of France, and with pro- 
phetic fury admonished nations/'* France in the space 
of half a century, successively democratic — imperial — 
legitimist — socialist — has alternated between every grada- 
tion of innovation — infidelity — republicanism — jacobinism 
— military dominion — constitutional loyalty — revolution- 
ary anarchy — superstitious fanaticism — to settle down at 
least for the present, in the despotic plenitude of a 
tyrannic stratocracy. Despotism is always the follower of 
anarchy, and events illustrate the wisdom of Montesquieu, 
that there is no authority more absolute, than that of the 
prince who succeeds a republic. -f- An empire, the creation 
of an army, is now the brazen idol of the priesthood, and 

* Grattan. 

| " II n'y a point d'autorite plus absolue que celle du prince, 
qui succede a la republique." — Montesquieu. 



FRANCE — ROME DESPOTISM. 



207 



success has legitimized its erection. " When vice becomes 
gigantic, it conquers the understanding, and mankind 
begin by wonder and conclude by worship."* France, 
that had formerly abolished all religions, now restores 
Catholicism, in the Pantheon — a temple dedicated to all 
the Gods. Her army so vast as to enslave them, has itself 
become the people ; a state of society which can only be 
remedied by arming the people, and unsoldiering the 
army.-J- The truest and noblest devotion of military 
service, is the defence of the state — it may thus cease to 
be the trade of any, by being rendered the duty of all. 

History may be thrown away as an old almanac, if its 
pages do not establish this, that from the humiliation of 
papal authority, can alone be expected the surrender of 
pretensions, dangerous to the repose of mankind. Although 
the religion which popes profess, inculcates that men 
should love one another, they have never yet taught 
nations to do the same. The iniquitous seizure and occu- 
pation of Rome have enabled France, in assuming to be 
the protector, to become the keeper of the Pope : a fugitive 
from his capital, he owes his restoration to foreign arms, 
and the first act of that restoration was to turn those arms 
against his people. While the throne of the head of the 
bishops of Christendom is sustained in defiance of the 
principles of freedom, the alliance between papacy and 
despotism, between military oppression and pious pro- 
fanity — between priestly homage and ambitious aggran- 
dizement — seems complete. The organization of a vast 
conspiracy against liberty is apparent : Rome is the 
centre — the despotic states the puppets : France the 
instrument — England the sanctuary of European freedom 

* Grattan. 

f " Armant le peuple, et popularisant 1'armie." — Calonne. 



208 ARMING OF FRANCE — SPIRIT OF ENGLAND. 

— the object. Equipping large armaments — maintaining 
and moving vast armies, is preparation for war. The 
designs of France, masked by professions of peace, are as 
mysterious and inscrutable as the mind of her ruler : her 
temper as vindictive, her ambition as aggrandizing as his 
elevation, without any guide but the star of his destiny, 
— has been astounding. While France has been 
gradually and insidiously arming, England has been 
calmly philosophizing. While the armies of the one have 
, been indulging in military ovations — her fleets in gladia- 
torial menaces — the ministers of the other have been until 
recently looking on, with placid indifference. Time was 
when there were ministers of England, who would not 
have remained so long passive — ministers who would not 
consider a feverish and unrefreshing dream, haunted by 
the spectre of war, to be a peace. Chatham would have 
struck his crutch against the ground — his equally eminent 
son would have started from his seat, and exclaimed, 
" France must arm or disarm — half measures are bad 
measures — England cannot wait to receive a blow !" 

Base-born recreancy may preach penury, but it was 
not by calculations, that empires were ever raised or 
saved. Economy itself will soon feel, that peace with a 
war establishment is worse than war, as likely to be more 
enduring. The spirit which in the days of Elizabeth 
pulsated in every English heart, will, if the cloud charged 
with thunder should burst over us, again revive, again 
swell the crest of England. Priests, in furtherance of 
the papal design — that a free country should not exist on 
earth — may excite the rabble by hopes of revenge — 
retaliation — by prospects of rapine — of the exaltation of 
their church ; but while England nobly faces danger front 
to front, it cannot be believed, that Ireland will assume 



PRIESTS — CIVIL WAR — INVASION OF IRELAND. 209 



the cowardly disguise of the hireling assassin — to stab 
her in the back. Are the priests themselves prepared to 
hazard the horrors of a civil war — " a war fit for Cain to 
to be the leader of — an abhorred — an accursed — a fraternal 
war ?"* Should Ireland be itself selected as the point 
of invasion, would a scion of a noble house be again 
found to devote himself as a rebel chief ?*f* Will the 
* Milton. 

t The tragic fate of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a son of the most 
aristocratic family in Ireland, is familiar to the public through 
his " Life and Death," by Thomas Moore. Lord Edward, the 
fifth son of the Duke of Leinster, by Emily Mary, daughter of 
Charles, second Duke of Richmond, was born on the 15th of 
October, 1763, and married, at Tournay, in 1792, Anne Caro- 
line Stephanie, daughter of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans 
(" Egalite," afterwards guillotined), and Stephanie, the celebrated 
Countess de Genlis. Mr. Moore, who seems to have had the best 
information from his family, makes no secret that the Countess 
was the mother of the young lady. Madame de Genlis represented 
her to be the daughter of English parents of the name of Sims, 
and to have been only adopted by her, as a companion for her 
pupil, the Princess Elizabeth. M. de Chartres, afterwards Louis 
Philippe, King of the French, was a witness of the marriage 
contract of his half-sister, afterwards better known as Pamela. 
Lord Edward had served with credit in the British army in 
America, towards the termination of the War of Independence, 
and while there, and in his subsequent visits to France, had 
imbibed the republican principles of both countries. We may 
say with Mr. Curran, — " I could never mention his political 
offences without grief ; and were it consistent with the principles 
of public justice, I could wish that the recording angel would let 
fall a tear, and wash them out for ever." (Curran's Life, by his 
Son.) Misguided though the leaders were, they never intended 
that they should become the vassals, or the country, a province 
of France. Mr. Moore states, that the offer of assistance from 
the Directory was accepted " on condition that the French would 
come as allies only, and consent to act under the new Irish 
government, as Rochambeau did in America ; that, upon the 
same principle, the expenses should be reimbursed, and the 
troops, while acting in Ireland, receive Irish pay." (Moore's Life, 



210 CATHOLICS — PROTESTANTS — COMPARISON. 



property, education, intelligence —the essence of the 
country, array themselves under such leaders as priests ? 
Would the invaders come as allies or as conquerors ? 
Would Imperial France submit to act, as the republican 
directory had promised to do, under the orders of an 
Irish executive? The Protestants were even then in 
courage, skill, and military qualities, estimated com- 
paratively with the Catholics, in the inverse ratio to their 
numbers ; while the latter are numerically diminishing, 
the moral and physical strength of the former, whose 
loyalty is unstained, unshaken, and inviolable, have 
proportion ably risen. The Catholic gentry, whose tra- 
ditions tell them that state necessity has, ere now, led to 
the arming of Protestants, the disarming of Catholics, 
— that Catholic estates have ere now, made Protestant 
landlords — will naturally feel, and imperiously tell their 
priests, that a papal alliance and a French invasion 
would not confer new civil rights, extend existing 
privileges, render the laws more mild, more equal, 
more just, their administration more merciful, property 
more sacred, action more free under foreign passports. 

vol. i., p. 276.) The idea was never entertained of enduring 
French or priestly dominion. The Act of Attainder, passed by 
the Irish Parliament, was unjust, as unpreceded by a conviction, 
and its reversal by the Imperial Legislature, at the instance of 
George IV., reflected credit on that King. He had been kind to 
the children of Lord Edward, and gave a commission to his son 
in his own regiment, the Tenth Hussars, with which corps he 
served in the Spanish war. Sarah, the seventh daughter of the 
Duke of Kichmond, married Colonel George Napier, and to her 
two eminent sons, — Charles James, the hero of Scinde, and 
William, the historian of the Peninsular War, — both general 
officers, and both first-cousins of Lord Edward, — it is probable, 
that the military defence of England, in the event of invasion, 
would be intrusted. 



R ITISH FLEETS— WELLINGTON — TROPHIES — ARMADA. 211 

They will tell them to turn to the annals of the war with 
imperial and revolutionary France, and there read, that 
Great Britain and Ireland then stood alone against the 
world in arms ; that British fleets, while distracted by 
dangerous mutinies, defeated and destroyed those of 
France— mutinies met and subdued with the fortitude of 
ancient Rome — only to display the meteor flag, braving, 
in prouder defiance, " the battle and the breeze." They 
will there read, that the month of July, 1798, Ihe month 
in which the rebellion raged fiercest in Ireland, witnessed 
the annihilation of that French fleet which carried 
Bonaparte to Egypt, — to strike at British power in the 
East, — by Nelson, at the battle of the Nile. They will 
there find, that in the same war, during which Wellington, 
in his unprecedented succession of triumphs, took 3,000 
pieces of cannon, without losing a single one,* the 
British navy, in operations against France and her 
allies — Spain, Holland, Russia, and Denmark — captured 
and destroyed 143 ships of the line, of which 80 sail were 
French; and 246 frigates, of which 168 were also 
Frenchf — trophies so vast, that it became a complaint 
amongst the shipwrights and artificers in our dock- 
yards and arsenals, that her enemies were the naval 
architects of England ! 

The prospects and performances of former invasions 
may, perhaps, form a short episode of some interest. 
When the Armada was fitted out for the extinction of 
Protestant power, " the Spanish council and the priests 
decided that it was easy to conquer England ; that she 
was declining and weak, deficient in ships and forts, in 
horses and all warlike preparations; was destitute of 

* Lord Ellesniere's Lecture on Wellington, 
t James's Naval History, vol. vi., pp. 500-505. 



212 ELIZABETH — DISMAY AT ROME — INQUISITION. 



captains of war, and needy of money ; that the English 
were fond of novelty, hated their queen, were desirous 
to rebel, and inclinable to the Catholic faith."* Such 
were the dreams of foreigners, deceived by ecclesiastics ; 
such their ignorance of the country they intended to 
assail ! One favourite object of Philip was to obtain 
possession of the person of Elizabeth ; and " the King 
gave great charge to the commander of the expedition in 
nowise to harm the person of the Queen, but, on taking 
her, use the same with reverence ; and that, so speedily 
as he might, to take order for the conveyance of her 
person to Rome, to the purpose, that his Holiness the 
Pope should dispose thereof as it should please him."-f* 
It was the determination of the meek and clement Pius, 
to have handed her over as a rebellious heretic to the 
mercies of his inquisitors. On hearing of the discom- 
fiture and failure of the Armada, the Pope, cardinals, 
priests, monks, and Jesuits at Rome were exasperated 
beyond bounds, less, perhaps, at the defeat of the expe- 
dition which they had blessed as invincible, than at the 
falsification of their prophecies, the detection of the false- 
hoods, they had circulated throughout Europe against 
England.^: While the Queen now reigns secure in the 
hearts of her subjects, they should remember that the 
persecutions of the venerable and enlightened Galileo by 
the Inquisition at Rome, have been lately palliated and 
applauded by a Spanish-born cardinal here; that the 
Inquisition has been revived ; that the Roman, Tuscan, 
and Neapolitan dungeons are now crowded with its 
victims. If the only religious crusade fitted out for the 
shores of England, terminated in the dismay and tribula- 

* Politicorum Dissertationem, cited by Strype, p. 7. 

t Strype. % Barrow's Life of Drake, p. 314. 



FKENCH EXPEDITION TO IRELAND — ITS FATE. 213 

tion of popes and priests, they may rest assured that any 
future attempt, with the same wicked design, will meet 
the same ignominious end. 

In the formidable expedition, which was dispersed 
before it reached its destination — Bantry Bay — were con- 
centrated all the vigorous efforts of the energetic direc- 
tory — ail the available resources, naval and military, of 
the French republic. T. W. Tone, to whom no man can 
deny the spirit of the enthusiast and the chivalry of the 
soldier, in his journal written on the spot, thus describes 
its prospects and its achievements : — " It is altogether an 
enterprise truly unique. We have not one guinea ; we 
have not a tent ; we have not a horse to draw our four 
pieces of artillery ; the General-in-chief marches on foot ; 
we leave all our baggage behind us ; we have nothing but 
the arms in our hands, the clothes on our backs, and a 
good courage." * . . . " My prospects at this hour are 
as gloomy as possible. I see nothing before me, unless 
a miracle be wrought in our favour, but the ruin of the 
expedition, the slavery of my country, and my own 
destruction."*!- ..." We have lost two commanders- 
in- chief ; of four admirals, not one remains. We have 
lost one ship of the line that we know of, probably many 
others of which we know nothing. We have been now 
six days in Bantry Bay, within five hundred yards of the 
shore, without being able to effect a landing. We have 
been dispersed four times in four days ; and at this 
moment, of forty- three sail, of which the expedition 
consisted, we can muster of all sizes but fourteen. These 
only wait our falling in with the English to complete our 
destruction ; and, to judge of the future by the past, 

* Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone, by his Son, vol. ii., p. 144. 
t Ibid., p. 149. 



214 TONE — NATIONAL " REGIMENTS OF MILITIA. 



there is every probability that will not be wanting."* 
Tone, however, returned safe, and reached France on the 
1st of January, 1 799 : — " We arrived seven sail ; we left 
forty-three sail, of which seventeen were of the line."-f- 
Such was the fate of the great French expedition for 
the invasion of Ireland! Such the protection which 
Providence throws around the righteous. The prospect 
of a future invasion by France, with the increased power 
of England united — her hands free — her vast naval 
resources — her skill, intrepidity, courage, arranged, or- 
ganized, concentrated — with France obliged by nature to 
purchase her steam coals from England— with the steam 
fleets of England, forming floating and continuous lines 
of circumvallation around her shores — may be estimated, 
from the disasters and calamities, which attended and 
closed the last. 

During the war, Ireland nobly emulated the otber 
portions of the Empire, by supplying to the general 
exigencies of the State her national regiments — the legis- 
lative measure which sanctioned the interchange of the 
militias of both Islands, — designed to reconcile and unite, 
by associating the natives of its different segments together, 
- — gratified her vanity by the display of their gallant bear- 
ing and high discipline. Now when England again invests 
the sons of her gentry with the gratification of rank, and 
by voluntary enlistment enrols and embodies her peasantry 
in military array, for national defence ; Ireland excommu- 
nicated by the threatning demeanour, evil example, and 
public malefactions of the priesthood, remains excluded 
from the credit and confidence of the imperial association. 
During the war, constant and loud were the complaints, 

* Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone, by his Son, vol. ii.,p. 151. 
f Ibid. 



ALIENS — INDIGNATION — SHEIL. 



215 



that the high naval and military appointments were closed 
against the Catholic gentry — Is the audacity of priestly 
disloyalty to be now the means of excluding honourable 
ambition from elevated rank ? Many may remember the 
indignation of the high Catholic body, at a time when 
priestly effrontery had not yet mounted to its present 
height, at the expressions, " Aliens in race, country, and 
religion," expressions — afterwards qualified by the lips 
from which they unguardedly fell in the House of Peers — 
expressions — then deemed indicative of distinctions insult- 
ing to national pride, which distinctions, the priests now 
labour to realize and perpetuate. Who can ever forget, 
that listened to, the inspirations of eloquence with which 
the affront was rebuked and resented by Sheil in the 
House of Commons on the 22nd of January, 1837? 

" From the earliest achievement in which Wellington 
displayed that military genius, which has placed him 
foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that 
last and surpassing combat, which has made his name 
imperishable — from Assaye to Waterloo — the Irish 
soldiers with whom his armies were filled, were the 
inseparable auxiliaries to the glory, with which his un- 
paralleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the 
arms, that drove your bayonets at Vimeira, through the 
phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before ? 
What desperate valour climbed the steeps and filled the 
moats at Badajos? all his victories should have rushed, 
and crowded back upon his memory — Vimeira, Badajos, 
Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and, last of all, the 
greatest. Tell me, for you were there, I appeal to the gal- 
lant soldier before me," (Sir H. now Lord Hardinge) " from 
whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous 
heart in an intrepid breast ; tell me, for you must needs 



216 



APPEAL IN PARLIAMENT. 



remember — on that day, when the destinies of Europe 
were trembling in the balance — when death fell in showers 
— when the artillery of France was levelled with a pre- 
cision of the most deadly science — when her legions, 
incited by the voice and inspired by the example of their 
mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset ; tell 
me if for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was 
to be lost, the aliens blenched ? And when at length, the 
moment for the last and decisive movement had arrived, 
and the valour which had so long been wisely checked 
was at last let loose ; when with words familiar but im- 
mortal, the great captain commanded the great advance ; 
tell me, if Catholic Ireland with less heroic valour, than 
the natives of this your own glorious country, precipitated 
herself upon the foe ? The blood of England, Scotland, and 
Ireland flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same 
field; when the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold 
and stark together — in the same deep pit their bodies were 
deposited — the green corn of spring is now breaking from 
their commingled dust — the dew falls from heaven upon 
their union in the grave — partakers in every peril, in the 
glory shall we not be permitted to participate ? And shall 
we be told, that we are estranged from the noble country, 
for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out."* Is the 
spirit which dictated such thrilling sentiments extinct ? has 
it died in the hearts of the Catholics of Ireland with the lips 
that uttered them ? No ! The same high and gallant spirit 
which achieved liberty for themselves, elevated the Empire 
in glory, and won admiration from the world, will yet, by 
rescuing her from the dishonouring, debasing thraldrom of 
priests, redeem and regenerate their country. 



* Hansard's Pari Deb. 



/ 



PAPACY - CONTRAST — GREAT BRITAIN. 



217 



The modern master of historic eloquence describes 
the religious power of the papacy as still remaining, not 
in decay, not a mere antique, but in full vigour — as 
still sending forth its missionaries, as boasting of a number 
of children greater than in any former age— her spiritual 
ascendency extending over vast countries, which a century 
hence, may not improbably contain a population as large 
as that which now inhabits Europe, and as yet exhibiting 
no sign, which indicates that the termination of her long 
dominion is approaching.* Such Catholics as education 
befits for such contemplations, and they are many, must 
see the spiritual power of Rome thus exalted, — equalled, 
if not surpassed, in the vastness of the territorial dominions 
of Great Britain — dominions acquired in every clime, as 
well by the advance of civilization as by conquest — 
dominions still expanding with the extension of her 
industry and renown in every quarter of the globe — 
dominions on which the sun never sets — dominions on 
which, when the slave steps, he becomes instinctively 
free. The extension of her empire in the East, forced 
upon her, built up step by step — every successive war, at 
first defensive, terminating in extension — subjects as 
numerous as the most wide-spread Christian sect — un- 
disputed mistress of the seas — the only modern victor 
that can boast of being unvanquished on any field — first 
in arts, arms, agriculture, colonization With her, 
colonization has high and noble aims. While the spirit 
of her people is hostile to the taste for territorial ag- 
grandizement, the generosity of her policy, allowing 
their resources to enrich themselves, disdains to acquire 
national revenue from her colonial dependencies. Fore- 

* Macaulay's Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes. 



218 FREE INSTITUTIONS — FIDELITY — EXTENSION. 



most in the erection and sustainment of free institutions 
— fearless in protecting her own liberties — ever extend- 
ing, by reforming the political privileges of her people — 
ever befriending the fallen fortunes of less happy 
nations ; — a people, whom riches have not rendered in- 
dolent, nor liberty licentious ; — a community ever shield- 
ing the meanest from what is unjust ; combining the 
most jealous assertion of public rights, the most virtuous 
indignation at private wrong, with the most elevated and 
chivalrous devotion to the national w T eal. A power, 
which no combination of enemies has depressed, which 
has maintained the fidelity of every engagement unim- 
paired, which has diffused and continues to diffuse the 
educational, commercial, and constitutional blessings she 
enjoys, over vast countries created, and still rising into 
existence. Having exhausted, by her enterprise and 
her industry, all known resources, — new worlds still open 
upon her — to pour their profuse and magic treasures into 
her lap.* Her commerce, unparalleled in the history of 
the earth, seems to create the productions which it 
carries — the ocean presents no lines of demarcation to 
limit the freedom of her trade — the frontiers of nations 
almost cease to be barriers to her advance, while her 
insular position multiplies for her, points of contact with the 
world. A nation which traces her successful ascendency 
to indomitable perseverance, amazing industry, admirable 
skill, untiring zeal, emulative ambition, un wearing ener- 
gies, and, above all, the enjoyment of full and perfect 
liberty. To England do the free men and free institu- 
tions of the vast American Union trace their birth, To 
England does modern India, great amidst the greatest of 

* Australia had been discovered by the Dutch, and abandoned 
by them to England as wholly valueless. 



CATHOLIC FREEDOM — HOSTAGES. 219 



Asiatic dominions, owe its creation. To England, whose 
destiny seems likely to be progressive to further great- 
ness with the duration of time, — will future generations of 
empires look back — proud of their parentage. There are 
still living those, who have endured the deprivation of 
privileges withheld ; they can best estimate the value of 
privileges enjoyed. There are still living those, who have 
survived the days of galling disabilities, — who remember 
when political degradation made life debased ; when the 
contumelies of plebeian ascendency stung to the quick 
the consciousness of ancestral pride ; when intellectual pre- 
eminence was daily passed by privileged inferiority in the 
race of honourable ambition. Those who so survive, we 
invoke as monitors to the rising and future generations, 
by their reminiscences of the past, by the heartburnings 
they have felt for their caste, their country, their creed ; 
them — may we ask : Was it a vain and inglorious con- 
summation of Catholic liberty, to be embosomed in 
honour, freedom, security, equality, in the incorporation 
of such a state ? Them — may we remind, that the pledges 
of their fathers, the properties they possess, the privileges 
they enjoy, the ties of birth, blood, kindred, that bind 
men to home, are the hostages for their honour — their 
allegiance. How emphatic the prediction — ' ' If England 
and Ireland are true to themselves and to each other, 
their triumphs will renovate the world, or leave in the 
world little worth living for !"* 

Philosophic minds, contemplating the history of our 
race, have observed in the development of events, a 
systematized combination, which, resembling the move- 
ments of the material world, displays the design of its 

* Past and Present State of Ireland. 



220 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY — CONCLUSION. 



Creator. The philanthropist, the legislator, and the 
statesman may, perhaps, hope yet to witness the varied 
gradations of rank, religion, race, which crowd our 
national hemisphere — although devious and divergent in 
their courses — uninfluenced by foreign sway, moving har- 
moniously round one glorious centre — civil and reli- 
gious LIBERTY ! 



LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD-STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 



